10 years — The ten most visited speeches (Part 2)

Now for the top 5. These are the most visited speeches on the Speakola site across the last ten years, as measured by Squarespace analytics.

Yesterday’s bottom half of the top 10 was startling for the sheer number of Denzel Washington speeches it contained.

Today, I reveal which five speeches have topped the charts.

#5. Oliver Cromwell: 'In the name of God, go!' speech dismissing Rump Parliament - 1653, 106,406 views

Who had Oliver Cromwell pencilled into their top 5? ‘In the name of God, go!’ is arguably more popular now than it was when the Rump parliament was dismissed. Basically, Brits google this speech whenever they hate their Prime Minister, which seems to be roughly always. It’s a short speech, and such an almighty tonk over long on (cricketing metaphor) that you’ll enjoy reading the whole thing, ye venal slaves!

Cromwell ended up being just the peace-loving, centrist, secular sadistic dictator England had been looking for, although he did diminish the power of kings, particularly the ones he had killed.

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!

#4. John Belushi: 'Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?', Bluto's Big Speech - 1980, 134,324 views

I set up a speeches site, trying to uplift the human spirit and provide transcription to famous moments in history, and then what comes in at number four? Bluto’s Big Speech from Animal House. I’m not saying it isn’t a masterpiece, it absolutely is, but it’s only just a speech, and the whole TV & Movie monologue thing was always a bit of an afterthought. But as it’s turned out, these are often the most popular pages.

I’m beyond proud that Oliver Cromwell and John Belushi are on a list together.

D-Day (Bruce McGill): "War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one

Bluto: What? Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!...

It ain't over now, 'cause when the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'. Who's with me? Let's go! Come on!...(He ran to the front door but no one followed him)

Bluto (returning): What the f--k happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you're gonna let it be the worst. 'Ooh, we're afraid to go with you, Bluto, we might get in trouble.' (shouting) Well, just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer...

Otter (Tim Matheson): Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now, we could fight 'em with conventional weapons. That could take years and cost millions of lives. No, in this case, I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

We're just the guys to do it...LET'S DO IT!

#3. Nathuram Godse: 'May it Please Your Honour', Why I killed Gandhi - 1948, 158,858 views

I find this a disturbing speech and I’m not particularly comfortable that so many people find it on my site. It’s the courtroom rantings of Hindu nationalist Godse, who thought that with Gandhi’s support of Partition and the rights of Muslims, the Mahatma had abandoned Hindus and greater India. What is disturbing is that a huge number of modern day Hindus rally to this speech and really believe that Gandhi was some sort of traitor, rather than a champion of peace and non violence, and the father of Indian independence.

I had Gandhi biographer Ram Guha on the fourth episode of the podcast and he talked about Godse’s speech, as well as four great speeches of Gandhi himself.

I try not to play morality police on too many speeches instead focusing on historical significance. Some truly bad people have speeches in the speech bank. In my opinion, Godse is part of that murderous gang.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way.

Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house

#2. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam: 'My vision for India', IIT Hyderabad - 2011, 186,998 views

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was an aerospace scientist who turned to politics, and became president of India from 2002 to 2007. He’s something of a national hero, having been a pioneer of India’s missile program, but also a fervent believer in alleviating poverty and increasing education. Like a couple of other speeches in the top 10, this speech grabs from the rule of threes and proclaims the former president’s three visions for India —freedom, development, strength. He died in 2015 at the age of 83.

I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards the Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture and their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my FIRST VISION is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of Independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.

No video or audio

#1. Jeff Daniels (written by Aaron Sorkin): 'America is not the greatest country in the world anymore', The Newsroom - 2012, 232,856 views

In the Trump era, when millions of Americans are having to suffer the indignities and the traumas of an antidemocratic kleptocrat who truly is besmirching everything a great nation did to become great, it actually seems mean to recount this speech. It was written when many Americans might have believed they were the greatest nation in the world, as a rebuttal to the exceptionalism that annoys many of us who look in from the outside. It’s been viewed nearly 50,000 more times than any other speech on the site. Again, it’s not really what I built Speakola for, but you take the traffic where you can find it!

And [to the conservative panelist] with a straight face, you're going to tell students that America's so starspangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

And you—sorority girl—yeah—just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about?! Yosemite?!!!

So there are the top 5. As I explained yesterday, they are not the best speeches on Speakola. They are just the ones that have found a strong position in the Google search algorithm, perhaps because they are not so easily dug up elsewhere, perhaps because I was first with a transcript. One of the better decisions I’ve made across the ten years is not to post speeches without a transcript. That’s how I try to be better than YouTube.

Thanks again for being a reader of Speakola, spread the word, ❤️ or like a post occasionally (that apparently really helps), share one of your own speeches with me, recommend a famous classic (I bet I already have it :) - test me in the comments) or become a paid subscriber or donor. It all helps. It’s largely a labour of love, it’s a one person project, thanks for being part of the ten years.

Cheers

Tony

Thanks to new paid subscribers ⭐ Terri, ⭐ Michelle Callinan, ⭐ Jules Beatty, ⭐ Mary Besley, ⭐ Kim Hollands, ⭐ Anthony Fogarty, ⭐ Peter Stevenson, ⭐ Tim Nethercott, ⭐ Jennifer Crowe, ⭐ RMalt,

And new Founding Member ⭐⭐⭐ Ruth Robinson.