My fellow Americans:
This is the fifth time I’ll release a record for you and not the last. We’ve been together 8 years now, and soon it’ll be time for me to go on tour. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I’ve been saving for a long time.
It’s been the honor of my life to be a pop star. So many of you have written the past few weeks to say thanks, but I could say as much to you.
One of the things about pop stardom is that you’re always somewhat apart. You spend a lot of time going by too fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people through tinted glass — the parents holding up a child, and the wave you saw too late and couldn’t return. And so many times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well, maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
People ask how I feel about fame and wealth. And the fact is, “celebrity is such sweet sorrow.” The sweet part is Nashville and the ranch and freedom. The sorrow — the periodic goodbyes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place eventually.
There are a few favorite windows I have that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. I see prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
The lesson of all this is, of course, that because I’m a celebrity, my challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as I remember my first principles and believe in myself, the future will always be mine. And something else I learned: once you begin a great movement, there’s no telling where it will end. I meant to change a nation, and instead, I changed a world.
When you’ve got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 25th birthday you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it flowing before you. I am happy with my career in the entertainment world.
Nothing is more free than pure communism — and yet we have all, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with capital. I’ve been asked if this isn’t a gamble, and my answer is no because I’m basing my actions not on words but deeds.
But life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents. Don’t be afraid to see what you see.
I’ve been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. For those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. I’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs production.
All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been listening to Top 40 radio, let ‘em know and nail ‘em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.
And that’s about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. 1989 is a vision of the “shining city upon a hill.” 1989 is a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. 1989 is for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
And so, thanks for buying the record, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.