Pete Seeger Quotes (26 Quotes)


    There was so much political music going on it was the height of the anti-nuke stuff, ... there should be more places for people to do this kind of music.

    Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

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

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

    Historically, I believe I was correct in refusing to answer their questions.


    Songs wont save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things they can slip across borders.

    I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.

    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.

    I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.

    I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.

    I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.

    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.

    I feel that my whole life is a contribution.

    I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.

    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 want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

    I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax.

    In a few lines of poetry he captured one of the great contradictions of the world the heroism of people doing something, even knowing it was a crazy something. And he showed how the establishment has used music for thousands of years to support its way of thinking.

    But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.

    Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.

    I know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners.

    I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

    I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches.


    One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.

    I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.


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