During yesterday’s (December 6) episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the host highlighted a video from a recent visit to the Space Force cadets in Greenland and mentioned wanting to repay them with what he is good at: “telling jokes and drinking alcohol.”
“I wanted to thank the service members at Thule for making me feel at home, so I invited them out for a night of fun at the Top Of The World bar,” Colbert explained. “I recently found out the Space Force is so new that while you’ve got a 120-year-old Sousa march called ‘The Invincible Eagle,’ it doesn’t have any lyrics yet. That ends tonight.”
Colbert goes on to introduce none other than the country star (and US Navy veteran) Sturgill Simpson to help him out with the words. The Space Force crew was immensely excited, chanting Simpson’s name in the audience as a warm welcome.
“Hail the guardians’ vigil keeping, on the Earth both night and day / Watching o’er you when you’re sleeping / But not in a creepy way,” Simpson and Colbert jokingly duet as the video is spliced with footage of the crew working.
And the jokes in the new Space Force anthem don’t end there. “Hail the guardians, we’ve seen aliens / As the galaxies they cross / Oops / We were supposed to keep that secret / So, please don’t tell our boss,” they continue, as the sing-along lyrics allow everyone to start joining in on the space-age bit.
Watch Simpson perform the new (and totally real) Space Force anthem with Stephen Colbert above.