Please welcome Ryan Tedder, Ester Dean, and Shane Mcanally.
Yay!
Hi.
Hey there.
Hi.
I'm so happy to talk to y'all, and Ryan and I speak often.
And thank you for those goodies that you sent, Ryan.
And I just have to say--
and he knows this.
I'm a huge fan.
Portia and I watch the show every week.
We love it.
We love the three of you.
Anyway, congratulations on that, and thank you
for keeping the booking.
Because it is a crazy time.
And we are trying to focus on all
the things we can do to listen, and learn, and educate.
But we wanted to talk to you three today,
so how are all of you doing?
I am doing as Ester would be doing.
Everybody who knows me, I'm a person who
looks toward life at all times.
So at the end of the day, I'm being
who I am by projecting out love at all times,
and I love what I'm getting to see.
I love who everybody is being or becoming.
So I feel very lucky to be in this time
to be in a time of history that change--
it will be in history forever.
It's like this is the beginning of a new history.
And I'm so honored to be able to see it, and be a part of it,
and make change.
That's amazing.
I am so glad to see these two, and especially
to meet you, Ellen.
And thank you for having us.
Ester, I love what you just said.
You know, I've certainly never felt more sort
of helpless or white in my life.
And trying to not--
you know, this whole thing about not saying anything or not
addressing some things, it's really difficult for me.
I feel very ignorant, so I don't want to say the wrong thing.
I just take your lead a lot of times, Ester.
And when you talk about being in the middle of love
and looking at it from light, I am trying very hard just
to learn.
Even that at times sounds too passive,
but I just am glad that we even get to have
these kind of discussions.
I feel very fortunate.
Other than that, I am in Florida with my family.
I've been here through quarantine,
and we've actually had a really great family time.
My two kids and my husband and I have been
together for three months now.
It's been good and crazy.
And Ryan, how are you, Ryan?
Yes, Ryan.
I'm doing great.
You know, the last five days not withstanding, the last five
days have rocked my world.
It's the first moment I've hit since the pandemic started
where I didn't feel creative.
I canceled sessions.
I still can't really get out of the fog.
Without rehashing everything that happened,
I happened to come across that video about 30,
40 minutes after it went live.
I didn't even know what I was watching to be honest,
and then I cried, like I think a lot of people have done.
I won't go into my whole history, but I grew up--
a decent chunk of my life was deep in brazen revolting
racism, things that I personally witnessed growing up.
I'm grateful that to not be surrounded by that anymore,
but yet, it's still there.
And it's time.
I think it's interesting that it's
the year 2020, because 2020 means perfect vision, right?
So it's like we all of a sudden in the year 2020, all of us,
all of these people, who have stood by, and I say, all of us
white privileged people, who call ourselves not racist
and loving people.
But still, we're ignorant to the fact
that we weren't doing enough.
I just find it interesting that it's 2020, because I suddenly
have perfect vision.
I don't know if it's perfect, but I'm
trying every day to be better and to listen and learn.
And anyway, I want to say, also, as songwriters,
like in the '60s, there was a whole movement
numbers of songs about protest, and peace,
and stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody, look, what's going--
you know, like all those.
And I feel like that's going to happen now.
Don't you think music will start going,
and there's going to be new music right now?
100%, 100%, Ellen.
And in that song, especially Buffalo Springfield,
"For What It's Worth," I've covered that song for 12 years
now on tour.
It's funny that you mentioned that one.
That one, it strikes a chord.
I think music is more important than ever.
Yeah, yeah, oh, I think it's an exciting time.
All right, we'll be right back with the Songland judges.