Good morning Hank, it's Friday. So our tour ended last night in Los Angeles. Almost every night for the last month I've stood at the side of the stage during your set and watched you play, because I love your music and I love watching you perform it and also because it brings back memories. I think about the first time I saw you play in front of a crowd, 45 people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, almost a decade ago now, or I think about other nights: Edinburgh; the first VidCon or 8808 in Chicago when Harry Potter fans were singing your song so loudly I could barely hear your voice over theirs. And I think about how later that night in 2008, we hung out with Amy Krauss Rosenthal, my friend who died earlier this year. Here's an Amy story I've been telling on tour: so, back in 2005, Amy, who was a children's book writer and memoirist and professional seeker of wonder in the world invited me to one of her readings. And at the time I was in one of my periods of intense unwellness, I felt like I was losing my whole self to intrusive thought spirals, but this particular episode was accompanied by a chest crushing depression. I found nothing enjoyable, I struggled to get out of bed, the usual. It was at once absolutely excruciating and completely boring. Susan Sontag wrote that "depression is melancholy, minus its charms". Somehow I managed to get to the event but I wasn't having much fun at it because I was alone and I was stuck with these invasive thoughts I couldn't stop having and also Amy kept wanting people to participate in what she was doing and I hate audience participation! It just makes me very nervous because: 1) sometimes the audience doesn't deliver and also 2) I have paid for the show to be entertained, not to be part of the entertainment. So anyway, I was just in a terrible mood, and then seemingly out of nowhere Amy started talking about how back in World War I all of these British soldiers who didn't understand why they were being asked to fight and die for tiny patches of ground far from their home started singing a song to the tune of that New Year's Eve song, Auld Lang Syne. They would sing "we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here". It was this recursive lament, an acknowledgment that there was no "why", that life in the trenches was meaninglessness all the way down. But that night in 2005 Amy completely transformed that song for me without ever changing the words. Amy made me understand that WE were here, meaning that we were together and even when we felt alone, we weren't really, because we were part of this vast and deeply interconnected US. And also that we were HERE, even if only for a little while. And maybe we'll never know why we are here, but we can still proclaim in hope THAT we are here. That night Amy made me understand that hope is not foolish or idealistic or misguided, hope is true. And I really believe that. I really believe that hope is the correct response to the arc of history. Hank, some years are longer than others and 2017 has been a long one for me. It's been good and bad and difficult and amazing and joyful and terrifying and very long. But we're here. We're here. Hank, I'll see you on Monday. - And now, Hank, will you? - Yeah, I'm extremely scared. This is it, somebody has a laptop with an internet connection? I'm getting kind of tired of this Prepublication media blitz
You've got all of Muggle kind under your spell Don't you know the whole world's already gone
And reserved a copy at Amazon
How many more books could you sell? Now give me my book or go to hell! 'Cause I need Harry Potter
Like a grindylow needs water
And as Saturday approaches my need grows Accio Deathly Hallows
Incendio book sales embargoes;
It'll be like phoenix tears on a broken nose Accio Deathly Hallows
If anyone is interested in crying more after watching this video go read the essay Amy wrote titled "You May Want to Marry my Husband". She died 10 days after publication.
I saw the tour in Nashville. John had the crowd sing the song with him. I didn't expect to cry that night. That song and story is going to stick with me for a long time.
I was at the Curran theater in San Francisco for the Halloween show. He did a version of this video live, complete with a sing-along at the end. The song messed me up in the best way. I’ll never forget it, even if I always choke up too much to sing along.
We’re here because we’re here because we’re here. (not my video)