It’s on again, the annual awarding of gold microphone jpegs to people who are possibly slightly more interested in actually changing the world or honouring a great moment or person. But words do have their power, and this site is acknowleding those who have wielded them brilliantly in 2019.
Let us know your thoughts on the rankings or ones we’ve missed. Send us your speech, or recommend someone else’s, and listen to our Speakola podcast when it launches in 2020.
1. John Stewart: ‘Sick and dying, they brought themselves down here to speak to no one’, Speech to Congress, 9-11 First Respnders Bill
The former The Daily Show host, renowned for wit and comedy and satire, put all that away to just bludgeon the US Congress with the embarrassment of its own inertia. The fact that most of Congress was a no-show provided Stewart with his opening gambit, and once the bolt was in the crossbow, he didn’t miss. Sublime oratory, from beginning to end, it’s a story to make you cry. Stewart achieved almost immediate results. The First Responders compensation bill passed the Senate six weeks later allocating 10.2 billion over the next ten years and was signed into law on July 29. It’s our best speech for this year.
2. Greta Thunberg: ‘How dare you!’, UN Climate Action Summit
It was only December last year that the Swedish teenager announced herself to the world in Poland. That was our runner up to Emma Gonazales in Speakolies 2018. Her Climate Acton speech this year came in response to a question, and it may sit as the most historically important moment of 2018. It was more emotional than some of her other speeches, with the same piercing eyes and fierce and unflappable directness of tone.
3. Jacinda Adern: ‘You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you’, Response to Christchurch mosque shooting
In the wake of a tragedy, the New Zealand PM showed a rare ability to find the right emotional pitch - to grieve, to rally, to condemn, to honour, to lead. She spoke brilliantly in this news conference, and also in parliament and at the memorial service. Our top ranking politician this year.
4. Joe Marler: ‘Get back on the horse’, Harlequins pre game interview
We really are about all speeches great and small, not just the serious and the important. This one is right up there for the simple fact it is the best of its genre, possibly ever. Nobody has ever delivered better pre game sports patter than this. Joe Marler … his horsey masterpiece.
5. Viola Davis: ‘Living life for something bigger than yourself is a hero’s journey’, Barnard College
Avoided some of the commencement tropes, a speech to inspire personal and political reflection. Davis has an actor’s skill with voice and timing, and her ‘own of all it’ centrepiece is a beauty. '‘Who said all of who you are has to be good?’ Fresh, passionate, poetic, inspiring. One of the best commencements in recent years.
6. Wayne Schwass: ‘Manning up now is to put your hand up’, eulogy for Danny Frawley
An Aussie rules footballer with depression farewelling his great mate who committed suicide. Heartwrenching, but with a men’s mental health message bound beautifully into his expression of love and loss. ‘We may have lost this battle, Spud, but we won’t lose the war’.
7. Megan Rapinoe: ‘We have to be better’, USWNT’s World Cup victory parade
A woman who has been able to transcend even sublime athletic performance to be something more. Has the knack of seizing a moment, and turning it into something larger. “You’re someone who walks these streets every single day. You interact with your community every single day. How do you make your community better?”
8. Jamahl Cole: ‘It’s not regular’, Martin Luther King Day Interfaith Breakfast
Every hallmark of a great speaker. The ability to interweave story and the larger point, repetition of key phrase, emotion, cadence, language. This is a speech worthy of the day and MLK, the greatest speech But as Jamahl Cole says, don’t say ‘great speech man’. Support My Block My Hood My City.
9. Neale Daniher: ‘Summon the courage, the moral courage, to take responsibility’, Fight MND
Daniher, an ex AFL footballer and coach, is a legend in his native Australia for his courage, fundraising, and advocacy for motor neurone disease. As his ability to speak easily has diminished the power of his words is truly remarkable. This is to Melbourne players and officials, a club he coached.
10. Rosie Duffield: ‘When they ask you out, they don’t present their rage’, Domestic Abuse Bill
Duffield received a standing ovation from both sides of the House for this emotionally stirring, personal account of an abusive relationship. It was delivered in the context of the Domestic Abuse Bill, a law devised to provide safe homes to women and children fleeing abuse.
11. Adam Schiff, ‘You might think it’s okay’, Speech to House Intelligence Committee in response to resignation demand
Concise, cutting, a perfect rebuttal to Republican calls for his resignation as chair of the HIC. In a crowded field of anti Trump oratory in 2019, this was our pick for the standout, just in terms of structure and impact in such a short address.
12. Teresa May: ‘Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word’, Resignation speech
May has a dour reputation, but this is a sparkling and beautiful farewell speech. “This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government, on the common ground of British politics, can achieve—even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge of any government has faced.”
13. Sacha Baron Cohen: ‘Just think what Goebbels would have done with Facebook’, Anti-Defamation League award
One for the social media age that crystalised many fears about privacy, propaganda and democracy in the age of facebook and twitter. “All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.”
14. Olivia Colman: ‘‘I’ve done that bit, I think I’ve done that bit’, BAFTA acceptance speech
For pure charm and a real life Hugh Grant-esque formal English bumbling, this speech was so charming and enjoyable. You ride the emotions with Colman, but also bathe in her humility and humour. Not one for the transcript. This one you want to hear. A masterclass in how to make off-the-cuff sound brilliant. ‘But this is for all three of us. It's got my name on it, but we can scratch in some other names.’
15. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘And it's already super legal, as we've seen, for me to be a pretty bad guy’, Campaign finance speech
She divides a nation, as AOC herself jokes at the start of this brilliant few minutes on the state of her country’s campaign finance and anti corruption laws. Such an easily understood cross examination with devastating clarity of result. Still only 30 years old, phenomenal communicator. Her Women’s March speech was amazing too.
16. Tara Westover: ‘The Un-instagramable Self’, Northeastern University
Many commencement speakers do the bit about locating themselves in the chair of the graduates, but this had a refreshing honesty to it, centred on the dishonesty of how we present these moments that matter. “You will look wonderful in the photos you will post of you and your children. You will look wonderful because you will make sure that you look wonderful.” One of the very best commencements in recent years.
17. Dylan Alcott: ‘There’s a ramp out the back, baby!’ Logies acceptance
Dylan Alcott is an Australian tennis star who won the quad wheelchair tennis title at Wimbledon this year (also a great speech). He won this award for his TV work on the Invictus Games where he sparkled with all the humour and charisma that shines through. He manages to make a joke about lack of ramps in the venue, and then a beautiful conclusion about the skills & potential of people with disabilities.
18. Oprah Winfrey: ‘Success is a process’, Colorado College
Oprah would perhaps be higher up if she hadn’t delivered so many great commencements in recent years, as Oprah’s Daughters have gone through college and graduated. This may be here last for a while, and it’s typically wonderful. It’s difficult to be that fluent, that natural - funny, wise, she is the whole package. “I realized my true purpose was to be a force for good, to allow people to be themselves.”
19. Imam Gamal Fouda: ‘They were the best of us, taken from us on the best of days’, Christchurch Memorial service
The imam from Al Noor mosque in Christchurch delivered a note perfect speech at the memorial service, commemorating and honouring the fifty dead, and heralding a call for unity and peace. “Your departure is an awaking not just for our nation, but for all humanity.”
20. Sir David Attenborough: ‘The garden of Eden is no more’, World Economic Forum, Crystal Award
The great naturalist has been an advocate for climate action in recent years, both in speaking engagements and in his documentaries. This one is direct, eloquent, and emotional. “We have changed the world so much that scientists say we are now in a new geological age - The Anthropocene - The Age of Humans. When you think about it, there is perhaps no more unsettling thought.”
21. Andrew Rule, ‘Won’t keep you Les’, eulogy for Les Carlyon
We love contributed eulogies and there was no finer example this year. Andrew Rule is a Walkley Award winning journalist, and this was his send off for his great friend, the author, journalist, historian and all round Australian writing giant, Les Carlyon. We are waiting on the video of speech from the Carlyon family. Andrew Rule’s eulogy for his father is also an all time classic.
22. Alexander Vindman: ‘I will be fine for telling the truth’, Testimony to Trump Impeachment Hearing
It was for the career serviceman with Russian heritage to provide the most moving words of the impeachment hearings so far. A simple statement of the difference between US democracy and Russian autocracy. “Dad, my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United State of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth. “
23. Jess Phillips: ‘I thought I had met posh people before I came here, but I had actually just met people who eat olives’, Commons debate
This was an immigration speech, responding to government plan to restrict new arrivals to 'skilled' workers. And in order to determine whether they are skilled or not, the government waslooking at imposing a £30,000 pay threshold. Phillips, an MP from Birmingham, was scathing, funny, natural.
24. Dorothy Byrne: ‘Too many programs are saying small or medium things about society’, McTaggart Lecture, Edinburgh TV festival
The self deprecating Byrne proclaims herself to be ‘the Methuselah of TV’ and then proceeds to deliver a lecture that is funny and fearless. Her delivery is spot on, the anecdotes roll out. One of the most enjoyable speaking half hours of 2019 .
25. Emma Gonzalez: ‘Every day it feels like the shooting is happening again ‘, Change the Ref
We made ‘We Call BS’ our speech of the year last year and this one is brilliant too. “Every day, I feel the same. Every day, my friends feel the same. Every day, it feels like the shooting is happening again or happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow. …Some days are better than others of course, but every time there is another mass shooting somewhere else, or any instance of gun violence anywhere, I hug my roommate a little tighter when I see her. “
What speeches have we left out? Where was the order wrong? We are influenced by the speeches that are pushed in our direction, and there is an obvious bias towards English language and the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Please send speeches to us from anywhere! We have so many great historical Indian speeches now. We’d love to hear from you in the comments, or on social media (Speakola facebook, or @speakola_ on twitter) To submit a favourite, or yours, email submissions@speakola.com.
This site has no revenues, and is entirely the love project of Tony Wilson. If you’d like to book him to talk great communication and speeches to your organisation or institution, send an email via http://tonywilson.com.au.. Melbourne based.
Have a wonderful and eloquent 2019!
Best wishes
Tony Wilson @byTonyWilson
http://speakola.com
www.tonywilson.com.au