Folk Music Quotes

“If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.”
― Vera Nazarian

“This machine kills fascists.”
― Woody Guthrie

“One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies.”
― Phil Ochs

“All of my words, if not well put nor well taken, are well meant.”
― Woody Guthrie

“But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate. They twist away our freedom, and they twist away our fate. Fear is their weapon, and treason is their cry. We can stop them if we try.”
― Phil Ochs

“And she tried the high heels but she couldn't bring herself to prance.”
― Ani Difranco

“You know when I'm down to my socks it's time for business
That's why they're called business socks
It's business, it's business time”
― Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords

“It [folk music] exceeded all human understanding, and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be sucked into it. I felt right at home in this mythical realm made up not with individuals so much as archetypes, vividly drawn archetypes of humanity, metaphysical in shape, each rugged soul filled with natural knowing and inner wisdom. Each demanding a degree of respect. I could believe in the full spectrum of it and sing about it. It was so real, so more true to life than life itself. It was life magnified.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“Martin Carthy on English folk music: "I'm not interested in heritage - this stuff is alive.”
― English Folk musician Martin Carthy

“All of my words, if not well put or well taken, are well meant.”
― Woody Guthrie

“You better get it while you can
You better get it while you can
If you wait too long, it'll all be gone
And you'll be sorry then
It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor
And it's the same for a woman or a man
From the cradle to the crypt
Is a mighty short trip
So you better get it while you can”
― Steve Goodman

“It's one of those songs that everybody knows, but you are not supposed to do, because everyone does it, only no-one does it, because you're not supposed to do it, because everyone does it....if you follow that....”
― Gloria Jackson

“[In South Carolina listening to Gullah-speakers sing spiritials] As with bluegrass in Tennessee I am reminded once more of the extraordinary power that comes from music that is played in the place where it was born.”
― Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry in America

“Traditional music is the foundation of what the folk music revival was about—songs of unknown authorship handed down through the generations. I keep returning to these old, classic songs, often bringing them back to find new meaning and fresh interpretations. “Danny Boy,” “The Lark in the Morning,” “Barbara Allen,” “So Early, Early in the Spring,” and “The Gypsy Rover” have lasted for years and will endure for years more. They touch your heart, and for anyone trying to write new and original songs, they stand as an unspoken challenge: make something as good and as timeless as this and you will have won the heart of your listener. You also will have added something to the story of humankind. Traditional songs didn’t just spring from the earth, of course. Somebody somewhere came up with a melody through which to tell a story, and that story-song got passed along. These songs survive in the memory of a culture because they tell stories of universal emotion and experience—of love, heartbreak, mourning, abandonment, victory, and defeat—and because they are so very adaptable to so many times, to so many people. One person would add a verse; another would change a melody a bit. This is what we call the “folk process,” borrowing to fit the time, the person, the incident.”
― Judy Collins

“We know almost nothing of the rural class relations of lowland Scotland in the last two centuries and, as a consequence, are still struggling to escape from accounts of class relations in lowland agriculture which are in fact generalised accounts of the relations noted by observers (with keen eyesight, to be fair) sitting in Edinburgh. The north-east, the south-west, Strathmore were not like the Lothians; and folk music provides important evidence to support the point.”
― Ian R. Carter, Calgacus 2: Summer 1975

“Never use two notes when one will do. Never use one note when silence will do. The essence of music is punctuated silence.”
― Dave Van Ronk, Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk (7-Nov-2013) Paperback