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

Pete Seeger

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Pete Seeger
Age: 94 †
Born: 1919
Born: May 3
Died: 2014
Died: January 27
Banjoist
Guitarist
Mandolinist
Musicologist
Peace Activist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Street Artist
New York City
New York
Peter Seeger
People
Lips
Ears
Songs
Rather
Song
Really

More quotes by Pete Seeger

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And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.
Pete Seeger
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John Adams and Thomas Jefferson corresponded for 13 years before they died on the same day. They asked, How can one have prosperity without commerce? How can one have commerce without luxury? How can one have luxury without corruption? How can you have corruption without the end of the Republic? And they really didn't know the answer.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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Did you ever want something really bad and then when you finally got it all you could do was stand there and grin at it?
Pete Seeger
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I’ve never sung anywhere without giving the people listening to me a chance to join in - as a kid, as a lefty, as a man touring the U.S.A. and the world, as an oldster. I guess it’s kind of a religion with me. Participation. That’s what’s going to save the human race.
Pete Seeger
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Hope that there are many, many small leaders.
Pete Seeger
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When you play the 12-string guitar,you spend half your life tuning the instrument and the other half playing it out of tune.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
Pete Seeger
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Food is one of the great organizing tools.
Pete Seeger
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I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American.
Pete Seeger
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Way back in the old days, say in Europe of the Middle Ages, you had an aristocracy, and they could afford to pay for musicians. The kings and queens had musicians in the castles, and that developed into symphony orchestras and what we call Classical music now.
Pete Seeger
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Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.
Pete Seeger
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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
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I was about 16 years old years when my father took me to a square dance festival in North Carolina. For the first time in my life, I found there was music in my country that you never heard on the radio, and you didn't hear on the juke boxes, and in theaters. I fell in love with it, especially the long-necked banjos.
Pete Seeger
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Alan [Lomax] and his father started off changing the definition of folk music from something ancient and anonymous to something very contemporary.
Pete Seeger
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It's been my belief that learning how to do something in your hometown is the most important thing.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.
Pete Seeger
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To everything there is a season.
Pete Seeger