An Army of Normal Folks - Eric Church Compared Life to a Guitar. And It Went Viral.

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Most commencement speeches are forgotten within days. But when country music star Eric Church compared life to a guitar with six strings that must stay in tune—faith, family, relationships, ambition, community, and identity—the message struck a chord with millions. In this Shop Talk, Bill and Alex unpack the viral speech and explore what it means to keep your own life in tune when the world keeps pulling you out of it. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. We are starting right now officially Shop Number 108. That's a different way. Welcome in the shop. Welcome in, Bill. How you doing? 108 years ago would have been 1918, and I know this. It was a year before the first transatlantic flight. It was a year before. Shop Talk 108 is a year before the Grand Canyon, was named a national monument. All right. Yeah, I guess that's so stupid, Bill. Because the last one was 107 and that's what happened.

So it was a year before those things. Like last episode, too, you said the advent of the roaring 20s. All the same thing. Yeah, that's right. That's it. It was a year before. You're so lame. All right.

What is it? World War I was ending. Oh, really? 118 years ago. The world was trying to... One eight. 108. Yeah.

What do you mean 118? Wait, what? I'm talking 108. Yeah. Did you look up 118? 1918? 1918. You said 118 years ago.

So, 1918. Oh, did I screw this up? 108 years ago. Okay, cool. Yeah. Jeez. What happened? We're both tired.

All right, 108 years ago, the world was trying to put itself back together after one of the deadliest wars in history. Trench warfare is going on in Russia and Ukraine right now. This episode is about a much smaller but equally important challenge. How do you keep your own life from falling out of tune? Did you read the title yet? Did ChapchipT wrote that?

Did Chapit, oh, yeah. For gosh, I see. All right, here we are, y'all. Shop 108. Title, Eric Church compared life to a guitar, and it went viral. Have you heard about this? No. Well, let's talk about it right after these brief messages.

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As we get ready for the men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, everybody, we are back in Shop Talk number 108, which happens to be one year before the Grand Canyon became a national monument. The title of this shop talk, Eric Church compared life to a guitar and it went viral.

So here we go. Oh, I did hear about this. Now I know, yes. Okay. Yeah, you guys are going to love this. Check this out. Most commencement addresses are long forgotten. I actually have done a few of them.

Really? We still got to get you to be one at Old Miss. Maybe, but I've done a couple of them and I'm not sure, but I think one was decent. because I have had people that were in that graduating class like eight or nine years ago walk up to me and say, you did my commencement and I remember what you said. So that one was good. The other ones, I've never had anybody say anything to me about them because they must have sucked. Okay.

Most commitment addresses are long forgotten. Yep. Do you even remember who gave your address and what they said? I do not, do you? No. I don't remember high school or college. Well, I got a little bit of a riff on this, and he should actually be a shop talk. My brother recently sent me a podcast interview with Paul Tud.

Jones who was making this point about his Rhodes College one he gave one there and he kind of made this point like nobody remembers but actually Paul gave a beautiful address we should do as a shop talk I'd love to because Paul Trudeau Jones and he's a Memphis yeah he's a New York guy now but he's a Mimphian anyway we haven't gotten through the first sentence most commencement addresses are long forgotten do you even remember who gave your address and what they said almost no one does but a few weeks ago, country music star Eric Church gave one at the University of North Carolina that went viral and for good reason. We're going to dive into what it can teach us right after these brief message from our generous sponsors, but we've already had our break. Yeah, so you weren't supposed

to read that. Now you're supposed to read the address. Here, here, hold it. We're going to dive into this right after this, this one brief message from our generous sponsors. Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an Army and normal folks. Go to our website and buy some merch back to our regular schedule program. Sponsors who don't make any money because they're no-profit merch. I know they're no-profit merch, but people need to buy it. Okay. Six strings. When all six are in tune, the chords, they can make stop a conversation cold.

Carry a broken person through the worst night of their life or make a room full of strangers fill for three minutes like they've known each other forever. But if even one is off, the whole cord unravels, not grass. gradually, dot politely, the moment you strike it. You know, I believe your life runs on this principle, and I'm going to break it down for you right now and tell you about your strings. String one, the low E, that is your foundation.

The low E is the thickest string. It is the heaviest. Every quarter guitar can make rest on this string be in tune. Your faith is the low E of your life. The thing that sits at the very bottom of you, your belief about what this life is for, what you owe, what holds the universe together when science reaches the edge of its own explanation and shrugs. The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone and extraordinary ones. They still hurt. They still sit in

hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at three in the morning, but they have a foundation to return to. The world will try to untune this string through business, through slow accumulation of a full schedule, a full inbox, a full life. Listen to me, tend to your faith, not just when you're broken, but when you're whole. String two. String to is family. Okay? Look at these bleachers.

Look around somewhere in that crowd as someone who has loved you longer than you've been easy to love. It's true. Someone who saw you at your actual worst, not your public-facing worst. and didn't leave you. Someone who worked a job they didn't love to put a book in your hands. You sometimes didn't even open. Someone who sat along in a quiet house and cried the weekend, you moved into dorms and wondered, have it done enough. That is family. And the A string is where the music starts to get warm. This is incredible. It gives a chord, its body, its richness. It's a stream that makes you feel like you're not alone in a room. I want to warn you about something.

You're about to get busy in ways that you feel important and many are, professionally ambitious, creatively alive, building the life you've been pointed toward for four years and family because they love you with the grace you will spend most of your life trying to deserve and will rarely demand your time. They'll tell you they understand and they'll mean it. Do not take them up on it. Call your people. Not when there's news. Not when there's news. Not when there's nothing. Show up when it costs you something. Let them see you when things are hard. The A string is not a holiday string. It's an everyday string. Protect it. The D string. The heart of a chord. On a guitar, the D string sits right at the heart of the instrument in the middle of the low and

high strings. Giving the chord its body and its soul. Strike a full chord in D string as what you feel in the center of your chest. That is not an act. accident. That is exactly what the right spouse or partner will do for your life. The person you choose to share your life with is the most important decision you will ever make outside your faith. They will either amplify every other string you're playing or slowly pull the whole instrument into a tune of mess. Not that I know that. I love you, honey. Find your best friend, someone you want to talk to at the end of a long day. Look for shared values over shared interests. You don't need to love the same food or music. You need the same compass, though. It would

be benefited if you both hated North Carolina State. He's doing this in North Carolina. That wasn't in the speech. I'm throwing it in there. The right partner is a string that makes the whole chord ring fuller and warmer and truer than anything you could ever play along. Choose them wisely and love them fiercely. The G-string. It's what's called sorry. I didn't name the thing. That's just what it is. The G string. On that topic, John Norman wanted me to name this episode, the G string. I'm like, no, you inappropriate. So the G string, it's what it's called. I didn't name the thing. It's just what it is. The G string drifts faster than the others on a car. I can promise you, that is true. I've dealt with it my

whole life. It's because ambition and resilience both live on this string and they pull in opposite directions. I want you to want things. You should want to want things. The world has more than enough people standing at the edge of their own potential, waiting for permission slip that was never going to arrive. Want the thing. Say it out loud. Build toward it with everything you have. And when you fail, you will fail. Hemingway wrote it plainly right in the sternum. The world breaks everyone. Afterward, the best of us are stronger at the broken places. Get back up.

Tune the string. Keep playing. The B string is about community. Your generation faces the temptation. No generation before has ever faced. The temptation to perform for everyone and belong to no one. Oh my gosh. That's so true.

To be globally visible and locally invisible. To have thousands of followers and no one knows actually where you live. live. Resist this. Plant yourself somewhere. Put roots down with the full intention of growing there. Learn the actual names, not usernames, of the people around you. Volunteer, coach the team, build the thing your community needs, even if the internet will never see it. Generosity is not something you do after you make it. It's how you make it. And if you get lost and at some point, I promise you you will, you have a place you belong now. come back, walk through the quad on a fall day, or sit on Franklin Street on a game day,

and remember, these are my people because I'm a tar hill. My last tour took me 42,185 miles over North America, and every single night, near and far someone had a Carolina flag, a Carolina hat, or a Carolina jersey. You will find yourself speaking from experience. High-fiving strangers wearing Caroline gear in Far and Away airports are staying up. across time zones to catch the moments, last moments of a game, or canceling a show in Texas to be with your people in the final four as you vanquish Coach K. You're welcome. And having the ultimate pride knowing that's the night my boys learn the Carolina fight song ends with

Go to Duke. True. Carry this community with you as you plant your roots. It will reap a bountiful harvest and make your song richer and full. And finally the highest stream. This is the third. thin a string. It's the highest note. The one that carries the melody, the single line above the chord that everyone in this room recognizes and takes with them on the way home. It's also the one bent most easily by outside pressure. Social media is going to show you a thousand versions of a life that look better than yours. The comparison will be relentless, curated in a lie, dressed up in really good lighting. Someone's comments, someone's criticism, someone's cold opinion, going to try to convince you to retune yourself to match what they think you should sound like.

Do not let them touch your string. You are made uniquely, wonderfully, and distinctly. There's a sound only you can make, a voice that has never existed before you and will never exist again. A contribution only you can bring a way of sing that belongs only to you. The world does not need another cover song. It needs an original. Six strings. six strains of life and willingness to keep them in tune, six principles, six pillars.

When all six are in tune with each other, the chord your life makes is full and resonant and truth. All six will drift, not one or two, all six in their own time and their own season. Your faith will go quiet when you need it loud. Your family will get complicated in a way only the people who love you the most can complicate things. You will go through hard seasons with your spouse. Your ambition will hollow out and your resilience will wear thin. Your community will start to feel like an obligation and your world will try to sand down the edges of exactly who you are. That is not failure. That is not weakness. It is the inevitable universal experience of living in an imperfect world that doesn't stop to let us tune up. And the difference between a life that

sounds like music and a life that sounds like noise is whether you stop and listen, whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted out of tune and humble enough to make the adjustments instead of just turning up the volume and hoping nobody notices because you will notice. The part of you that knows what the chord should sound like will always notice. It will not let you go. Life won't be right until it's tuned. trust what your heart hears and it's telling you about your song. So graduates now encourage you to take your six strings and make it something worth hearing.

Congratulations. Class of 26. Go hard. Go Tar Hills. Thank you, God. That is phenomenal. I don't even know what to say to that, except that I love that one of his foundations is volunteer and giving back. and that the heaviest, deepest, quarters, bottom string is faith, which is incredible.

It's also such good. That second and last paragraph, man, it's just true is your family will get complicated. You will drift. You will go through hard seasons with your spouse. Your ambition will hollow out. Resilience will wear it thin. And your community will feel like an obligation when you're tired and beat. And it's not failure.

It's just part of living in a perfect world. But the beauty of an army of normal folks is if you are part of a community and part of an army and you have an accountability within that group, they can pick you up when you're dauber's in the dirt. And ultimately, that's what an army of normal folks is all about is people helping people. In that community section, I love the line. And I think this is one of those lines that kind of went viral too. your generation faces a temptation no generation before has ever faced the temptation to perform for

everyone and to belong to no one to be globally visible and locally invisible to have thousands of followers and no one actually knows where you live resist this plant yourself somewhere it's great and it's so true i think people were waking up to the fact that social media is fine for getting the word out and everything but it has become people's foundation and it started to define some people. And that is just not healthy for anybody. So anyway, everybody, that is the commencement address that, um, Eric Church. Eric Church gave a lot of good info there to think about. And when I listen to this shop talk, I will probably rewind it and listen to that again because there's about a thousand nuggets of

wisdom. Send it to your kids. Yeah, sending to your kids. It's a good idea. All right, everybody, that is Shop Talk number 108. Get your life in tune. Get your life in tune. That's really all there is to it. If you enjoyed this episode, please share friends on social, rate it, review it, join the Army at normalfokes. Dot us.

Buy some merch. What else else else? You got to always keep it in tune too. It gets out of tune. It's not a one-time process. No, that's right. You've got to humble yourself and realize when your music doesn't sound right and tune the string that's out.

Yeah. It's good stuff. All right, that's chapter number 108. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Until we see you next time, do what you can. We'll see you next week. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad

has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit season two is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city

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and wave your flag whoever you root for. Why do I watch the walk up? That's like asking me why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fed. It's not just a game.

It's a game. Your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American Football on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.