Brad Paisley continued his quarantine tradition of crashing Zoom calls last week when he surprised over 600 nurses on the virtual Vanderbilt 2020 State of Nursing address, which was part of Vanderbilt’s National Nurses week as well as a celebration marking the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale, who is the founder of modern nursing. A video of Paisley crashing the call began with the singer playfully interrupting one of the speakers, telling him, “Haven’t these nurses been through enough, Jay? That you don’t have to put them through this presentation right now?” He later added how he was “here to save these nurses from this.”
“I’ve always had this feeling of reassurance that Vanderbilt is in our town,” Paisley told the nurses on a sincere note. “I don’t think many cities our size have something this fine-tuned and, I guess, exquisite.” He also chatted with some of the nurses on the call and even showed off his dog before taking requests, though he joked, “Texts for ‘Free Bird’…. I’m not playing ‘Free Bird.’” He also performed an acoustic rendition of his new single, “No I in Beer,” which includes the line, “To the farmers and the first responders / To the truck drivers shiftin’ gears / Every nurse that needs a break, let me buy you a drink / There ain’t no ‘I’ in beer.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
He also gave back to Vanderbilt University Medical staff as part of the “Gratitunes” campaign, which started on March 30 for National Doctors’ Day and featured a number of artists sharing performances and uplifting words for the staff members. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Paisley has become the unofficial King of Zoom, crashing fans’ happy hours during his “Paisley Pub Crawls” and surprising several groups of teachers. In April, the father of two joined a group of Mississippi teachers who were on the platform for their weekly meeting, letting the group know that he was appreciative of everything teachers are doing during the pandemic after taking off the Star Wars Mandalorian helmet he was wearing as a disguise.”If you don’t like this, then go be somebody that can fix this kind of thing someday. Go figure out what needs done and channel this,” he said. “Become what you want to be. It’s not fair, I hate it, go out there and make a difference.”
