Rachel Platten bonds with Sweet Briar women over song that kept them fighting
Posted on May 09, 2016 by Jennifer McManamay
Rachel Platten’s personal anthem, “Fight Song,” is a crowd favorite at Sweet Briar and it showed when she took the stage Saturday night in Upchurch Field House.
She wrote the song after struggling in her own life, and it helped launch her music career. Last year, many involved in the Saving Sweet Briar movement adopted the anthem, too. So when Chegg and bareMinerals ran an online voting contest to bring the pop singer to a college campus for an hourlong concert and Q&A, students, alumnae and friends of the College were ready.
Tiny Sweet Briar — its student body reduced by more than half after last year’s closing attempt — beat out 2,500 other colleges and universities across the nation. The concert also came with another prize, a $10,000 donation to Sweet Briar’s music department from Chegg’s David B. Goldberg Music Scholarship fund.
On stage, Platten admitted she was impressed.
“There’s a lot of strong women in this audience and I love nothing more than women going after what they want and getting it. It’s incredible, it sets a beautiful example for all of you,” she said, indicating the 30 or so invited Girl Scouts who filled the first rows of the audience.
Platten said “Fight Song” was a declaration that she believed in herself, and it changed her life.
“All I know is that if you have something that you’re going for, besides saving the school, which is pretty incredible, do not give up on yourselves, do not stop fighting for what you believe in,” she said.
Later in media interviews, Platten noted that she is not used to performing for a mostly female crowd, and she was moved by the experience of singing with so many powerful women’s voices.
You can watch a short video of the event here.
She wrote the song after struggling in her own life, and it helped launch her music career. Last year, many involved in the Saving Sweet Briar movement adopted the anthem, too. So when Chegg and bareMinerals ran an online voting contest to bring the pop singer to a college campus for an hourlong concert and Q&A, students, alumnae and friends of the College were ready.
Tiny Sweet Briar — its student body reduced by more than half after last year’s closing attempt — beat out 2,500 other colleges and universities across the nation. The concert also came with another prize, a $10,000 donation to Sweet Briar’s music department from Chegg’s David B. Goldberg Music Scholarship fund.
On stage, Platten admitted she was impressed.
“There’s a lot of strong women in this audience and I love nothing more than women going after what they want and getting it. It’s incredible, it sets a beautiful example for all of you,” she said, indicating the 30 or so invited Girl Scouts who filled the first rows of the audience.
Platten said “Fight Song” was a declaration that she believed in herself, and it changed her life.
“All I know is that if you have something that you’re going for, besides saving the school, which is pretty incredible, do not give up on yourselves, do not stop fighting for what you believe in,” she said.
Later in media interviews, Platten noted that she is not used to performing for a mostly female crowd, and she was moved by the experience of singing with so many powerful women’s voices.
You can watch a short video of the event here.
