《Because We Can， We Must》歌词

歌曲： Because We Can， We Must

所属专辑：美国名校励志演说 17篇

歌手： 英语演讲

时长： 21:41

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Because We Can, We Must - 英语演讲[00:00:02]

Commencement Address by Bono [00:00:06]

at University of Pennsylvania[00:00:09]

My name is Bono and I am a rock star.[00:00:12]

Don't get me too excited because [00:00:16]

I use four letter words when I get excited. [00:00:19]

I'd just like to say to the parents, [00:00:21]

your children are safe, your country is safe, [00:00:24]

the FCC has taught me a lesson[00:00:27]

and the only four letter word[00:00:30]

I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N.[00:00:32]

Come to think of it, “Bono” is a four-letter word.[00:00:35]

The whole business of obscenity - [00:00:39]

I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly[00:00:42]

than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. [00:00:45]

It's a bit like when people put their King Charles [00:00:48]

spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats.[00:00:51]

It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter.[00:00:54]

It's true we were here before with U2 [00:00:58]

and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life,[00:01:03]

as well as you. I've got a great rock [00:01:06]

and roll band that normally stand in the back [00:01:09]

when I'm talking to thousands of people[00:01:12]

in a football stadium and they were here with me,[00:01:14]

I think it was seven years ago. [00:01:17]

Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems.[00:01:21]

I was wearing a mirror-ball suit [00:01:23]

at the time and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon.[00:01:26]

It was sort of a cross between a space ship, [00:01:29]

a disco and a plastic fruit.[00:01:32]

I guess it was at that point[00:01:34]

when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor. [00:01:38]

Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it's an honor,[00:01:41]

and it really is an honor, but are you sure?[00:01:46]

Doctor of Law, all I can think about [00:01:49]

is the laws I've broken - laws of nature, [00:01:53]

laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,[00:01:56]

and on a memorable night in the late seventies,[00:02:00]

I think it was Newton's law of motion...sickness. [00:02:03]

No, it's true, my resume reads like a rap sheet.[00:02:06]

I have to come clean. I've broken a lot of laws, [00:02:11]

and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about.[00:02:15]

God forgive me. Actually God forgave me.[00:02:18]

I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable,[00:02:23]

getting in the good graces of the powers that be.[00:02:26]

So I humbly accept the honor,[00:02:29]

keeping in mind the words of a British playwright,[00:02:33]

John Mortimer it was, "No brilliance is needed in the law.[00:02:37]

Nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails." [00:02:40]

Well at best I've got one of the two of those.[00:02:44]

I studied rock and roll and I grew up in Dublin in the 70s,[00:02:49]

music was an alarm bell for me, it woke me up to the world.[00:02:55]

I was 17 when I first saw The Clash, [00:03:00]

and it just sounded like revolution. [00:03:03]

The Clash were like, "This is a public service announcement -[00:03:06]

with guitars." I was the kid in the crowd[00:03:10]

who took it at face value. [00:03:14]

Later I learned that a lot of the rebels [00:03:15]

were in it for the T-shirt. [00:03:18]

I didn't expect change to come so slow,[00:03:20]

so agonizingly slow. [00:03:24]

I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle [00:03:26]

to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons, [00:03:29]

or the Establishment, it was something much more subtle. [00:03:33]

As the Provost just referred to,[00:03:36]

a combination of our own indifference[00:03:39]

and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of those[00:03:42]

you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy.[00:03:45]

So for better or worse that was my education. [00:03:48]

I came away with a clear sense of the difference[00:03:54]

music could make in my own life, [00:03:58]

in other people's lives if I did my job right.[00:04:00]

Which if you're a singer in a rock band means [00:04:03]

avoiding the obvious pitfalls like, say, a mullet hairdo.[00:04:06]

If anyone here doesn't know what a mullet [00:04:11]

is by the way your education's certainly not complete,[00:04:14]

I'd ask for your money back. For a lead singer like me, [00:04:18]

a mullet is, I would suggest, arguably more dangerous[00:04:22]

than a drug problem. Yes, I had a mullet in the 80s.[00:04:25]

Now this is the point where the members of the faculty [00:04:30]

start smiling uncomfortably and thinking maybe[00:04:34]

they should have offered me the honorary bachelors [00:04:37]

degree instead of the full blown doctorate - [00:04:39]

he should have been the bachelor's one, [00:04:42]

he's talking about mullets and stuff.[00:04:45]

If they're asking what on earth I'm doing here, [00:04:47]

I think it's a fair question. What am I doing here?[00:04:50]

More to the point - what are you doing here? [00:04:54]

Because if you don't mind me saying so [00:04:57]

this is a strange ending to an Ivy League education. [00:05:00]

Four years in these historic halls thinking great thoughts [00:05:04]

and now you're sitting in a stadium better [00:05:08]

suited for football listening to an Irish rock star[00:05:11]

give a speech that is so far mostly about himself.[00:05:13]

What are you doing here?[00:05:16]

Actually I saw something in the paper last week [00:05:18]

about Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address somewhere. [00:05:22]

One of the students was complaining,[00:05:26]

"I worked my ass off for four years to be addressed by a sock?"[00:05:29]

You have worked your ass off for this. [00:05:33]

For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling,[00:05:36]

everything you've got in this marketplace of ideas.[00:05:40]

The intellectual hustle. [00:05:43]

Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty,[00:05:45]

and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on.[00:05:48]

Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. [00:05:52]

Big ideas are expensive.[00:05:57]

The University has had its share of big ideas.[00:05:59]

Benjamin Franklin had a few, [00:06:02]

so did Justice Brennen and in my opinion so does Judith Rodin.[00:06:05]

What a gorgeous girl. They all knew [00:06:10]

that if you're gonna be good at your word, [00:06:15]

if you're gonna live up to your ideals and your education, [00:06:17]

it's gonna cost you.[00:06:19]

So my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? [00:06:20]

What's your big idea? What are you willing to[00:06:26]

spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, [00:06:31]

your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing[00:06:34]

outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?[00:06:38]

There's a truly great Irish poet his name is Brendan Kennelly, [00:06:41]

and he has this epic poem called The Book of Judas, [00:06:47]

and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, [00:06:51]

it says: "If you want to serve the age, betray it." [00:06:54]

What does that mean to betray the age?[00:06:58]

Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, [00:07:02]

it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes.[00:07:09]

It means telling the secrets of the age [00:07:12]

and facing harsher truths.[00:07:15]

Every age has its massive moral blind spots.[00:07:17]

We might not see them, but our children will.[00:07:21]

Slavery was one of them and the people [00:07:25]

who best served that age were the ones [00:07:29]

who called it as it was--which was ungodly and inhuman.[00:07:32]

Benjamin Franklin called it what it was[00:07:35]

when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.[00:07:38]

Segregation. There was another one.[00:07:41]

America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement [00:07:46]

to betray their age. And 50 years ago[00:07:50]

the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954,[00:07:54]

Brown vs. Board of Education came down [00:08:00]

and put the lie to the idea that separate[00:08:04]

can ever really be equal. [00:08:06]

Fast forward 50 years. What are the ideas right[00:08:07]

now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? [00:08:13]

What are the blind spots of our age?[00:08:17]

What's worth spending your post-Penn lives [00:08:20]

trying to do or undo? It might be something simple.[00:08:25]

It might be something as simple [00:08:28]

as our deep down refusal to believe [00:08:31]

that every human life has equal worth.[00:08:33]

Could that be it? Could that be it? [00:08:35]

Each of you will probably have your own answer,[00:08:38]

but for me that is it.[00:08:42]

And for me the proving ground has been Africa.[00:08:43]

Africa makes a mockery of what we say, [00:08:46]

at least what I say, about equality [00:08:51]

and questions our pieties and our commitments[00:08:54]

because there's no way to look at[00:08:57]

what's happening over there [00:09:00]

and it's effect on all of us and conclude [00:09:02]

that we actually consider Africans[00:09:04]

as our equals before God. [00:09:07]

There is no chance.[00:09:07]

An amazing event happened here [00:09:09]

in Philadelphia in 1985 - Live Aid -[00:09:12]

that whole We Are the World phenomenon [00:09:16]

the concert that happened here. [00:09:19]

Well after that concert I went to[00:09:21]

Ethiopia with my wife, Ali.[00:09:23]

We were there for a month [00:09:26]

and an extraordinary thing happened to me. [00:09:28]

We used to wake up in the morning[00:09:30]

and the mist would be lifting we'd see[00:09:33]

thousands and thousands of people[00:09:36]

who'd been walking all night to [00:09:37]

our food station were we were working.[00:09:39]

One man - I was standing outside talking to the translator -[00:09:41]

had this beautiful boy [00:09:45]

and he was saying to me in Amharic, [00:09:47]

I think it was, I said I can't understand [00:09:50]

what he's saying, and this nurse [00:09:52]

who spoke English and Amharic said to me,[00:09:54]

he's saying will you take his son. [00:09:57]

He's saying please take his son, [00:09:59]

he would be a great son for you.[00:10:02]

I was looking puzzled and he said, [00:10:04]

"You must take my son because[00:10:08]

if you don't take my son, my son will surely die.[00:10:10]

If you take him he will go back to[00:10:13]

Ireland and get an education."[00:10:16]

Probably like the ones we're talking about today. [00:10:18]

I had to say no, that was the rules there[00:10:20]

and I walked away from that man,[00:10:25]

I've never really walked away from it.[00:10:27]

But I think about that boy and[00:10:30]

that man and that's when I started this journey [00:10:32]

that's brought me here into this stadium.[00:10:35]

Because at that moment I became the worst scourge [00:10:37]

on God's green earth, a rock star with a cause.[00:10:41]

Christ! Except it isn't the cause.[00:10:45]

Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable,[00:10:49]

treatable disease like AIDS?[00:10:52]

That's not a cause, that's an emergency.[00:10:54]

And when the disease gets out of control [00:10:57]

because most of the population live on [00:11:00]

less than one dollar a day? [00:11:02]

That's not a cause, that's an emergency. [00:11:04]

And when resentment builds because of[00:11:07]

unfair trade rules and the burden of unfair debt,[00:11:11]

that are debts by the way that keep Africans poor?[00:11:13]

That's not a cause, that's an emergency. [00:11:17]

So, we Are the World, Live Aid, start me off [00:11:20]

it was an extraordinary thing and really [00:11:26]

that event was about charity. [00:11:28]

But 20 years on I'm not that interested in charity.[00:11:30]

I'm interested in justice. [00:11:35]

There's a difference.[00:11:37]

Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity.[00:11:39]

Equality for Africa is a big idea. [00:11:42]

It's a big expensive idea. [00:11:47]

I see the Wharton graduates now getting out[00:11:50]

the math on the back of their programs,[00:11:53]

numbers are intimidating, aren't they?[00:11:55]

But not to you! [00:11:57]

But the scale of the suffering [00:11:59]

and the scope of the commitment [00:12:01]

they often numb us into a kind of indifference.[00:12:03]

Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty [00:12:06]

in Africa is like wishing [00:12:10]

that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy.[00:12:12]

We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it?[00:12:14]

Well, more than we think.[00:12:18]

We can't fix every problem - [00:12:23]

corruption, natural calamities [00:12:24]

are part of the picture here--[00:12:27]

but the ones we can we must. [00:12:29]

The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade,[00:12:31]

as I say, sharing our knowledge,[00:12:35]

the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs [00:12:39]

in a crisis, we can do that. [00:12:42]

And because we can, we must.[00:12:44]

Because we can, we must. [00:12:47]

This is the straight truth, the righteous truth.[00:12:51]

It's not a theory, it's a fact. [00:12:55]

The fact is that this generation - yours, my generation - [00:12:58]

that can look at the poverty,[00:13:03]

we're the first generation that can look at[00:13:05]

poverty and disease, look across the ocean [00:13:08]

to Africa and say with a straight face, [00:13:10]

we can be the first to end this sort of [00:13:13]

stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, [00:13:16]

a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. [00:13:20]

We can be the first generation.[00:13:23]

It might take a while, [00:13:26]

but we can be that generation [00:13:28]

that says no to stupid poverty. [00:13:30]

It's a fact, the economists confirm it. [00:13:32]

It's an expensive fact but, cheaper[00:13:37]

than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from fascism.[00:13:40]

And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave [00:13:43]

after wave of terrorism's new recruits. [00:13:47]

That's the economics department over there, very good.[00:13:50]

It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists[00:13:53]

in the air and cheering about it? [00:13:59]

Well probably because when we admit [00:14:01]

we can do something about it, [00:14:04]

we've got to do something about it. [00:14:05]

For the first time in history we have the know how, [00:14:08]

we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs,[00:14:11]

but do we have the will?[00:14:14]

Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell,[00:14:16]

I met a lot of Americans who do have the will.[00:14:22]

From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, [00:14:25]

I just felt an incredible overpowering sense[00:14:31]

that this was possible. [00:14:34]

We're calling it the ONE campaign,[00:14:35]

to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa.[00:14:38]

They believe we can do it, so do I.[00:14:42]

I really, really do believe it. [00:14:46]

I just want you to know, I think this is obvious,[00:14:51]

but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, [00:14:55]

I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair,[00:14:58]

I come from punk rock, [00:15:02]

The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. [00:15:04]

I believe America can do this! [00:15:07]

I believe that this generation can do this.[00:15:10]

In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.[00:15:13]

I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now,[00:15:17]

you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation,[00:15:23]

the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. [00:15:27]

I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this,[00:15:31]

outside this campus - and even inside it -[00:15:34]

idealism is under siege beset by materialism, [00:15:38]

narcissism and all the other isms of indifference,[00:15:42]

baggism, shaggism, raggism, notism, graduationism, chismism. [00:15:47]

I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him.[00:15:53]

But I don't want to make you cop to idealism, [00:15:56]

not in front of your parents, or your younger siblings.[00:16:00]

But what about Americanism?[00:16:03]

Will you cop to that at least? [00:16:06]

It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism.[00:16:08]

Not very big in Europe, truth be told.[00:16:11]

No less on Ivy League college campuses.[00:16:14]

But it all depends on your definition of Americanism.[00:16:18]

Me, I'm in love with this country called America. [00:16:21]

I'm a huge fan of America,[00:16:27]

I'm one of those annoying fans,[00:16:29]

you know the ones that read the CD notes [00:16:31]

and follow you into bathrooms [00:16:34]

and ask you all kinds of annoying questions [00:16:35]

about why you didn't live up to that?[00:16:37]

I'm that kind of fan.[00:16:39]

I read the Declaration of Independence [00:16:41]

and I've read the Constitution of the United States,[00:16:43]

and they are some liner notes, dude. [00:16:46]

As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage [00:16:49]

to Independence Hall, and I love America [00:16:53]

because America is not just a country, [00:16:56]

it's an idea. You see my country, Ireland,[00:16:58]

is a great country, but it's not an idea. [00:17:02]

America is an idea, but it's an idea[00:17:05]

that brings with it some baggage, [00:17:09]

like power brings responsibility.[00:17:11]

It's an idea that brings with it equality,[00:17:13]

but equality even though it's the highest calling, [00:17:17]

is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible,[00:17:21]

that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. [00:17:26]

It's like hey, look there's the moon up there,[00:17:28]

lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it.[00:17:33]

That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.[00:17:36]

In 1771 your founder Mr. Franklin spent three months [00:17:38]

in Ireland and Scotland to look at the relationship [00:17:44]

they had with England to see if this could be[00:17:47]

a model for America, whether America should[00:17:50]

follow their example and remain a part of the British Empire.[00:17:52]

Franklin was deeply, deeply distressed by what he saw.[00:17:56]

In Ireland he saw how England had put[00:18:01]

a stranglehold on Irish trade, [00:18:05]

how absentee English landlords exploited Irish tenant farmers[00:18:07]

and how those farmers in Franklin's words [00:18:12]

"lived in retched hovels of mud and straw, [00:18:15]

were clothed in rags and subsisted chiefly on potatoes."[00:18:18]

Not exactly the American dream....[00:18:22]

So instead of Ireland becoming a model for America,[00:18:25]

America became a model for Ireland in[00:18:30]

our own struggle for independence.[00:18:33]

When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, [00:18:35]

women and children packed their bags got on a boat [00:18:39]

and showed up right here. And we're still doing it.[00:18:44]

We're not even starving anymore, loads of potatoes. [00:18:47]

In fact if there's any Irish out there, [00:18:49]

I've breaking news from Dublin, the potato famine[00:18:54]

is over you can come home now. [00:18:57]

But why are we still showing up? [00:18:59]

Because we love the idea of America.[00:19:02]

We love the crackle and the hustle,[00:19:05]

we love the spirit that gives the finger to fate,[00:19:09]

the spirit that says there's no hurdle [00:19:12]

we can't clear and no problem we can't fix.[00:19:15]

(sound of helicopter) Oh, here comes the Brits, [00:19:18]

only joking. No problem we can't fix. [00:19:21]

So what's the problem that we want to [00:19:24]

apply all this energy and intellect to?[00:19:26]

Every era has its defining struggle [00:19:29]

and the fate of Africa is one of ours. [00:19:33]

It's not the only one, but in the history books[00:19:36]

it's easily going to make the top five,[00:19:40]

what we did or what we did not do.[00:19:42]

It's a proving ground, as I said earlier,[00:19:46]

for the idea of equality.[00:19:49]

But whether it's this or something else, [00:19:51]

I hope you'll pick a fight and get in it.[00:19:54]

Get your boots dirty, get rough, [00:19:57]

steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe's,[00:20:00]

one last primal scream and go.[00:20:05]

Sing the melody line you hear in your own head,[00:20:07]

remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations,[00:20:12]

you don't owe your parents any explanations,[00:20:16]

you don't owe your professors any explanations.[00:20:18]

You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, [00:20:21]

something you inherited like an old building[00:20:26]

that you move into when the previous generation [00:20:29]

moves out or gets chased out. But it's not. [00:20:31]

The future is not fixed, it's fluid.[00:20:35]

You can build your own building, or hut or condo,[00:20:38]

whatever, this is the metaphor part of the speech by the way.[00:20:42]

But my point is that the world is more malleable[00:20:46]

than you think and it's waiting for you[00:20:51]

to hammer it into shape. [00:20:54]

Now if I were a folksinger I'd immediately[00:20:55]

launch into If I Had a Hammer right now[00:20:59]

get you all singing and swaying. [00:21:02]

But as I say I come from punk rock, [00:21:03]

so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist. [00:21:06]

That's what this degree of yours is, [00:21:10]

a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it.[00:21:13]

Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin,[00:21:17]

"He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures [00:21:21]

but rather seems to think us too irresolute."[00:21:24]

Well this is the time for bold measures.[00:21:27]

This is the country, and you are the generation. Thank you.[00:21:31]