I mentioned I had a few things playing in my head when I wrote the speech and more than one person has asked what they were, so here is the list in no particular order.
This is who you are- Trans Siberian Orchestra
“You can run from all the memory but never get that far/For in the end they’ll find you/For this is who you are”
I Get Knocked Down- Tubthumping
“I get knocked down, but I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down”
“Don’t Let us Get Sick”- written by Warren Zevon, performed by Madeline Martin
“Just make us be brave/and make us play nice”
A good part of the first act of Hamilton, but especially
Guns And Ships
Yorktown
“I’m Hercules Mulligan/I need no introduction/when you knock me down I get the fuck back up again”
Vindicated- Dashboard Confessional
“And I am flawed/but I am cleaning up so well”
More than Useless- Reliant K
“I’m a little more than useless/ And I never knew I knew this/ Was gonna the day, gonna be the day/ That I would do something right/ Do something right for once”
Amigone- Goo Goo Dolls
“Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong?”
No one who knows me expected me to go this whole thing without mentioning Guardians of the Galaxy
“Usually life takes more than it gives, but not today”
There isn’t a good clip for this, but the following memory was very present in my mind: I was 13, and either about to watch or had just watched Schindler’s List. My mom explained that the beauty of it was that this guy had up until that point been a mild negative on the world, found something morally righteous he needed to do, and the skills he’d acquired being a mild negative were instrumental to doing it. People who’d been morally righteous their whole life couldn’t have done what he did. That stuck with me in a way basically no other moral instruction from my parents did.
Aceso Under Glass 