Quote

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

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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
Power
Songs
Must
Prove
Thing
Difference
Something
Differences
Darn
Really
Somebody
Pete
Make
Asks
Confess
Think
Song
Air
Thinking
Keep
Except

More quotes by Pete Seeger

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Do-so is more important than say-so.
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I was never enthusiastic about being somebody who was supposed to be silent about being a member of something.
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Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.
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The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.
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All songwriters are links in a chain.
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When I got out of school, I spent two years just hitchhiking around. Every time I met some old farmer who could play banjo, I got him to teach me a lick or two. Little by little, I put it together.
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My father, Charles Seeger, got me into the Communist movement. He backed out around '38. I drifted out in the 50's.
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The good and bad are all tangled up together. American popular music is loved around the world because of its African rhythm. But that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for slavery.
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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.
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The American Indians were Communists. They were. Every anthropologist will tell you they were Communists. No rich, no poor. If somebody needed something the community chipped in.
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Be wary of great leaders.
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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.
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A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision (2) acknowledged as a mistake (3) learned from (4) considered valuable (5) shared for the benefit of all.
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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.
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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.
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Well, normally I’m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big.” — Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)
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If there's something wrong, speak up!
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People are combining traditions like never before and finding somehow a fundamental unity for this human race of ours. I think working with each other as Jeff Haynes has done here-we may be surprised to find what deeper unity all human beings have.
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After visits to several Communist countries (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, East Germany, Vietnam, China, Cuba), I feel strongly that most revolutionary types around the world don't realize the importance of freedom of the press and the air, a right to peaceably assemble and discuss anything, including the dangers of such discussions.
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If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.
Pete Seeger