Pete Seeger Quotes About Songs

Quotes about: Songs

• I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, People, Ears

  "Pure Pete Seeger". Interview with Bill Moyers, billmoyers.com. May 20, 1994.

• Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

  Pete Seeger

  Music, Song, Funny Things

• A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Fighting

• Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Book, Speech

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Writing, Thinking

• Song, songs kept them going and going; They didn't realize the millions of seeds they were sowing. They were singing in marches, even singing in jail. Songs gave them the courage to believe they would not fail.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Believe, Jail

  Song: Take It from DrKing

• I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Thinking, Make You Think

  Source: peoplesworld.org

• Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.

  Pete Seeger

  Country, Song, Leader

• Honest songs aren`t written for money.

  Pete Seeger

  Music, Song, Honest

• Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Singing, Glad

  "When Pete Seeger Faced Down the House Un-American Activities Committee" by Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. January 28, 2014.

• I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Aggravation, People

  "When Pete Seeger Faced Down the House Un-American Activities Committee" by Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. January 28, 2014.

• Now somebody will ask me, Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference? And I have to confess I can't prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Thinking, Air

• Alan Lomax is the person who I think should be given major credit for what has been called the "Folk Song Revival." My father participated with him because my father was a musicologist and urged trained musicians to learn about "the vernacular."

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Father, Thinking

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

• Looking back, I think I tried to be too eclectic. Sometimes I'd sing thirty songs, and fifteen of them were not in English.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Thinking, Fifteen

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

• In the United States, many people said you can't have folk music in the United States because you don't have any peasant class. But the funny thing was, there were literally thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who loved old time fiddling, ballads, banjo tunes, blues played on the guitar, spirituals and gospel hymns. These songs and music didn't fit into any neat category of art music nor popular music nor jazz. So gradually they said well let's call it folk music.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Art, Hymns

  Source: www.folkmusicworldwide.com

• I still prefer to hear [Bob] Dylan acoustic, some of his electric songs are absolutely great. Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use my father's old term.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Father, Use

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

• A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung. I hope to be able to continue singing these songs for all who want to listen, Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Singing, Want

  Pete Seeger, Rob Rosenthal, Sam Rosenthal (2015). “Pete Seeger in His Own Words”, p.155, Routledge

• There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Struggle, People

  Source: www.folkmusicworldwide.com

• There are many people writing songs. That is absolutely wonderful. Who knows, there may be some kid in diapers and he or she might succeed in capturing in a few dozen words what great writers have spent years trying to say. Just the right word in the right place with the right melody behind it and the right rhythm. It might get around the world inch by inch, and people realize that this world is in danger, that we're in danger. That's the way "This Land Is Your Land" got to be so well known.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Kids, Writing

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

• If I've got a talent, it's for picking the right song at the right time for the right audience. And I can always seem to get people to sing with me.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, People, Talent

  "A Minstrel with a Mission". Life Magazine, 1964.

• My father urged Alan [Lomax] not to repeat the mistakes of the European folklorists who, a century ago, had collected these peasant songs and then arranged them for part choir and accompanied them on piano, and then told the young people of their country, "Don't change a note, this is our sacred heritage." Father said, whether it's a fiddle tune or a gospel song, learn it right off the record from the people who grew up with it. Don't just learn it from a piece of paper.

  Pete Seeger

  Country, Song, Father

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

• I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Humorous, Singing

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. November 3, 2008.

• RULERS should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Should, Be Careful

• In the largest sense, every work of art is protest... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out...

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Art, Years

  "Show 33 - Revolt of the Fat Angel: American musicians respond to the British invaders, Part 1". Interview on radio documentary series "Pop Chronicles", digital.library.unt.edu. February 14, 1968.

• My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all.

  Pete Seeger

  Mother, Song, Brother

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

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