Realize that little things lead to bigger things.
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.
Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.
Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.
In the sixties, during the Vietnam war, when anarchists and pacifists and socialists, Democrats and Republicans, decent-hearted Americans, all recoiled with horror at the bloodbath, we came together.
It’s a terrible thing being a patriarch. I don’t even have a gray beard. But people keep calling me up for advice.
My father, Charles Seeger, got me into the Communist movement. He backed out around ’38. I drifted out in the 50’s.
Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on.
But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail.
I have to resist the temptation to want to learn everything. You know, you can’t. You have to restrict yourself at some time, or else you find yourself just being spread too thin. And already I think I try too many things.
Get people to sing together and they’ll act together too.
You can’t work on everything all the time, so start where you are.
At the audition, your assignment is to find something new in the song. Something you’ve never noticed before. A breath carried over, a thought that ties the whole thing together. Then take the risk and do it.
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.
In a world of private property, if something isn’t owned by somebody, it’s going to be misused by somebody else.
To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love.
I’m not sure if my involvement in causes, benefits, marches, and demonstrations has made a huge difference, but I know one thing: that involvement has connected me with the good people: people with the live hearts, the live eyes, the live heads.
Be wary of great leaders.
Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple.
Edison failed ten thousand times before he perfected the modern electric lamp. The average man would have quit at the first failure. That’s why there are so many average men and only one Edison.