When Doug Emhoff takes the stage at the United Center Tuesday night for his speech at the Democratic National Convention, the audience in the arena will hear one of the second gentleman’s favorite songs: “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. Emhoff himself chose to walk out to that tune, sources said, as he prepares to deliver what he and his wife’s presidential campaign fully recognize will be the biggest speech of his career yet.
The song “You Get What You Give” — an optimistic 90s anthem about the value of persisting even as “this whole damn world could fall apart” — happens to hold special meaning for President Joe Biden, who formally passed the proverbial torch to his vice president on the opening night of the convention. In his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” the president details how his late son, Beau Biden, made him listen to “You Get What You Give” before chemotherapy sessions while being treated for the brain cancer that would ultimately take his life.
“Even though Beau never stopped fighting and his will to live was stronger than most – I think he knew that this day might come,” Biden wrote. “In retrospect, I think Beau played that song during our mornings together—not for him, but for me. To remember to not give up or let sadness consume me, consume us.”
The band broke up in 1999, but it reunited to perform the song for Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
