I never intended to make a living from music. That's the funny thing. I wanted to be a journalist. Pete Seeger More Quotes by Pete Seeger More Quotes From Pete Seeger However, the agricultural revolution took thousands of years, the Industrial Revolution took hundreds, and the information revolution only took decades. So, who knows what's going to happen in the next few decades, especially with the women's revolution. Pete Seeger next information years I was working for Alan Lomax in the Library of Congress folk song archive, and starting to realize what a wealth of different kinds of music there was in this country that you never heard on the radio. Pete Seeger library song country It was only through the years that I realized what an absolutely extraordinarily thoughtful person Dr. King was. Pete Seeger thoughtful kings years 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. Pete Seeger use song father Some folklorists just collected dead bones from one graveyard, only to bury them in another, their library. Pete Seeger graveyard library bones Alan Lomax is the person who I think should be given major credit for what has been called the "Folk Song Revival." My father participated with him because my father was a musicologist and urged trained musicians to learn about "the vernacular." Pete Seeger song father thinking My father urged Alan [Lomax] not to repeat the mistakes of the European folklorists who, a century ago, had collected these peasant songs and then arranged them for part choir and accompanied them on piano, and then told the young people of their country, "Don't change a note, this is our sacred heritage." Father said, whether it's a fiddle tune or a gospel song, learn it right off the record from the people who grew up with it. Don't just learn it from a piece of paper. Pete Seeger song country father My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all. Pete Seeger brother mother song I learned by transcribing songs out of the Library of Congress collection in Washington where I was working. I got a job when I just turned twenty in 1939 and Alan [Lomax] needed some help. I listened to hundreds of records every week. Pete Seeger library song jobs Now any person who plays an acoustic guitar standing up on stage with a microphone is a folk singer. Some grandmother with a baby in her arms singing a 500-year-old song, well, she's not a folk singer, she's not on stage with a guitar and a microphone. No, she's just an old grandmother singing an old song. The term "folk singer" has gotten warped. Pete Seeger grandmother song baby There are many people writing songs. That is absolutely wonderful. Who knows, there may be some kid in diapers and he or she might succeed in capturing in a few dozen words what great writers have spent years trying to say. Just the right word in the right place with the right melody behind it and the right rhythm. It might get around the world inch by inch, and people realize that this world is in danger, that we're in danger. That's the way "This Land Is Your Land" got to be so well known. Pete Seeger writing song kids 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. Pete Seeger struggle song people 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. Pete Seeger play years school My mother gave me a ukulele at age eight, and I sang the popular tunes of the day. Pete Seeger ukulele eight mother 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 queens kings europe 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 squares country father I remember someone once saying, "Pete, you know you really should take voice lessons." And I said, "Well, if I could find any voice teacher that could teach me to sing like Lead Belly I'd spend every cent to study under him." But every time you'd go to a voice teacher, he'd teach you to warble, as if you'd want to be an opera singer, and that's not what I'm interested in. Pete Seeger lessons voice teacher It's a terrible thing being a patriarch. I don't even have a gray beard. But people keep calling me up for advice. Pete Seeger calling advice people 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 finding-yourself temptation thinking Alan [Lomax] and his father started off changing the definition of folk music from something ancient and anonymous to something very contemporary. Pete Seeger ancient definitions father
