Big MachineOn Wednesday, three of the biggest names in country music take part in the inauguration of the next President of the United States, Joe Biden: Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, and Florida Georgia Line‘s Tyler Hubbard.
Tim and Tyler will perform their new hit, “Undivided,” which Tyler wrote while quarantining with COVID-19.
For Tim, the song encapsulates an idea he recently heard his friend, historian Jon Meacham, express particularly well.
“I’m not gonna say it as well as he did,” Tim asserts, “but what he said is, sort of the nature of nature is war, right? And as humans, what we do is we enter this sort of warring nature, and we try to carve out communities and societies out of it.”
“And in order to do that,” he continues, “there has to be social contracts that we have with each other: how we’re gonna treat each other, and how we’re gonna expect to be treated, and how we’re gonna operate as a community and as a society. And when those things start to fray, then the war of nature starts coming in.”
“And I think that this song sort of outlines how we’re supposed to operate and part of what our social contract is,” Tim adds.
You can catch “Undivided” during the Celebrate America special, which starts at 8:30 p.m. ET on all the major networks.
Garth’s performance comes during the swearing-in ceremony, which starts at noon at the U.S. Capitol, and he sees it as a moment when America can begin to heal its divisions.
“You must rise beyond red and blue,” he says, “you must rise beyond black and white, gay, straight, male, female. Look at it from above. Look at it as America. And so that’s always been kind of my thing.”
By Stephen Hubbard
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