Eric Church spoke to the class of 2026 through song at UNC-Chapel Hill’s commencement ceremony on Saturday (May 10), where the country star gave an inspired keynote address and performance of “Carolina” for his fellow Tar Heels.
Pieces didn’t fall into place for the commencement speech Church delivered at Saturday’s ceremony at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C., until he wrote the way he knows best. Sunglasses on, instrument in hand, he looked out at the crowd celebrating more than 7,000 graduates and turned their commencement speech into the most sincere guitar lesson they’ll likely ever experience.
“I have torn up multiple speeches,” said Church, who’s twice topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, and had three No. 1s and two No. 2s on Top Country Albums. “I have thrown things. And in one of my fits of frustration, I sat down with a guitar. And I thought, man, who am I kidding. I need to figure out a way to do this with a guitar.”
To begin, the Granite Falls, N.C., native told the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s graduating class, “I want to start with a sound. You know this sound. It’s a guitar that’s out of tune — something that almost gets there, it tries, but doesn’t. Some ancient, honest part of your brain knows it immediately. You don’t need training to hear it. You just know. That sound is the sound of something beautiful that has not been tended to.”
Then the metaphor that carried Church’s commencement speech came in: “Six strings. When all six are in tune, the chords they make can stop a conversation cold, carry a broken person through the worst night of their life, or make a room full of strangers feel for three minutes like they’ve known each other forever. But if even one is off, the whole chord unravels. Not gradually, not politely. The moment you strike it you know. I believe your life runs on this principle.”
In the singer-songwriter’s address to students, the six strings of a guitar represented faith, family, heart, ambition and resilience, community, and one’s sense of self. Church spoke of each guitar string and its significance to the life they’d construct post-graduation, encouraging the class of 2026 — 4,453 undergraduates, 1,608 master’s and 981 doctoral degree students, 5,594 of which are North Carolina residents — to aspire to flourish while tending to their roots.
“I want you to want things. You should want things. The world has more than enough people standing at the edge of their own potential waiting for a permission slip that was never gonna arrive. Want the thing. Say it out loud. Build toward it with everything you have,” Church said.
But he cautioned, “Your generation faces a temptation no generation before has ever faced. The temptation to perform to everyone and belong to no one. To be globally visible and locally invisible. To have thousands of followers and no one knows actually where you live. Resist it. Plant yourself somewhere. Put down roots 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.”
In another section of his commencement speech, he reminded the class, “You were made uniquely, wonderfully, 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 seeing that belongs to only you. The world does not need another cover song. It needs an original.”
“Six strings,” Church said in his keynote address. “Six strings of light 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 true. All six will drift. Not one or two. All six. In their own time, in their own season.”
He continued, “Your faith will go quiet when you need it loud. Your family will get complicated in a way only the people that love you 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.”
“This is not failure,” said Church. “This is not weakness. It’s 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, humble enough to make the adjustment 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 is tuned. Trust what your heart hears and is telling you about your song.”
Of course, an Eric Church commencement speech at a North Carolina school wouldn’t be complete without a performance of “Carolina,” the title track of his second studio album released in 2009. Church played the song on guitar as rows upon rows of new grads put their arms around one another and swayed.
Watch Church’s full commencement address to UNC-Chapel Hill’s class of 2026 below. He’s one of several artists invited to deliver keynote remarks at graduation ceremonies this year, including country peers Riley Green at Jacksonville State University and Luke Combs at Appalachian State University. In pop, Hilary Duff gave a commencement speech to Northeastern University’s 2026 class.
