President Obama:
Thank you. Thank you so
much. Thank you, everybody. (applause) Thank you. Please, everybody
have a seat. The show is not over. (laughter) To all the tremendous artists
from all the genres and backgrounds who've joined
us tonight to pay tribute to the one and only Sir Paul
McCartney, thank you so much. (applause) Stevie Wonder -- (applause) -- the Jonas Brothers, Faith
Hill, Emmylou Harris, Lang Lang, Herbie Hancock, Elvis Costello,
Jack White, Corinne Bailey Rae, David Grohl, and the funny
man, Jerry Seinfeld -- give it up for them. (applause) We also want to thank
the Gershwin family, as well as the
Library of Congress, and Dr. James Billington,
as well as PBS, for helping to
put this together. Dr. Billington has done
extraordinary work at the Library of Congress, and his
deep commitment to preserving America's cultural heritage for
future generations is something that we all treasure. We have a number of
members of Congress, number of dignitaries
here tonight. I want to make special mention
of our outstanding Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. (applause) You will not find a bigger
supporter of the arts than Nancy Pelosi, and so
we're grateful for that. Even as we gather here tonight
to present this annual award for extraordinary contributions to
American music and culture -- that's right, we
stole you, Paul -- (laughter) -- it goes without saying
that this has been a very difficult time. We've gone through a
difficult year and a half, and right now our thoughts and
our prayers are with friends in another part of the country that
is so rich in musical heritage -- the people of the Gulf
Coast who are dealing with something that we simply
had not seen before. And it's heartbreaking. And we reaffirm,
I think together, our commitment to see
to it that their lives and their communities
are made whole again. (applause) But part of what gets us through
tough times is music, the arts, the ability to capture that
essential kernel of ourselves, that part of us that sings
even when times are hard. And it's fitting that the
Library has chosen to present this year's Gershwin Prize for
Popular Song to a man whose father played Gershwin
compositions for him on the piano; a man who grew up to
become the most successful songwriter in history
-- Sir Paul McCartney. (applause) By its very definition,
popular music is fleeting. Rarely is it composed with
an eye towards standing the test of time. Rarer still does it actually
achieve that distinction. And that's what makes
Paul's career so legendary. It's hard to believe it's been
nearly half a century since four lads from Liverpool first landed
on our shores -- and changed everything overnight. And I have to share this story. While we were sitting here I
learned that the bass that Paul was playing on stage is the same
bass that he played at The Ed Sullivan Show, which he told
me, it cost him 30 pounds. He says he suspects it's
worth a little more now. (laughter) But the Beatles, they weren't
the first rock stars. They'd be the first to say
that others had opened that door for them. But they blew the walls
down for everybody else. In a few short years, they had
changed the way that we listened to music, thought about music
and performed music forever. They helped to lay the
soundtrack for an entire generation -- an era of endless
possibility and of great change. And over the four decades since,
Paul McCartney has not let up -- touring the world with the
band Wings or on his own; rocking everything from
small halls to Super Bowls. He's composed hundreds of
songs over the years -- with John Lennon, with
others, or on his own. Nearly 200 of those songs made
the charts -- think about that -- and stayed on the charts for
a cumulative total of 32 years. (laughter and applause) And his gifts have touched
billions of lives. As he later confessed of the
Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show -- where
he carried that bass out -- that one evening that changed
everything -- Paul said, "Luckily, we didn't
know what America was. We just knew our dream of
it, or we probably would have been too intimidated." Tonight, it is my distinct
pleasure to present America's highest award for popular music
on behalf of a grateful nation -- grateful that a young
Englishman shared his dreams with us -- Sir Paul McCartney. (applause) Sir Paul McCartney:
The President of America,
Barack Obama. (applause) Thank you. Thank you verymuch. This is such a fantastic
evening for me. I mean, getting this prize
would just be good enough, but getting it from
this president... (cheers and applause) And Mr. President said, we
are going through difficult times on a number of fronts, but
when I knew that I was coming here tonight, I knew I had to
say that even though we all know you've got lots of really
difficult issues to deal with, I just wanted you to know that
you have billions of us who are routing for you and we know
you are going to come through. (applause)
