Sixto Rodriguez Quotes

The protest songs of the 1960s and 70s managed to blend political and societal views with music from the heart.

And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did - and really didn't - in the 1960s.

A lot of people think that the music was responsible for a lot of changes in the Sixties, but I think the music came out of it. The music wouldn't have happened without the social changes.

In 1962, the smallest things were upsetting to authority. It wasn't the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the Anti-war Movement. It was something else, but it was a harbinger of what was to come.

In the '60s, when I was growing up, one of the great elements of American culture was the protest song. There were songs about the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the antiwar movement. It wasn't just Bob Dylan, it was everybody at the time.

In some ways, the '60s were a reaction to the '50s and the intensity of the Cold War.

I think the '60s were a time where they were singing about what was going on around them.

I think the '60s were an extraordinary time. I feel bad for the kids today who missed this wonderful confluence, which was simultaneously a confluence of the global and the mythological.

I mean it's easier to be in a demonstration if it's a trip that's one of the reasons why the whole thing fell apart in 1971, because it wasn't a trip any longer.

'Easy Rider' was never a motorcycle movie to me. A lot of it was about politically what was going on in the country.

It's very hard to have lived through the Sixties and not be political.

Students in the '60s were responsible for great changes, politically and socially.

I think the '60s and '70s were the peak period for the singer-songwriter, for sure.

Bob Dylan was more important for my political orientation than Karl Marx.

A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit.

I think that, in the '60s, you had lots of things going on in the culture which tended to decrease attraction to marriage, attraction to religion, and which tended to increase attraction to crime.

The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.

Dylan captured what was on a million minds and turned it into poetry. With 'Blowin' in the Wind' or 'The Times They Are A-Changin',' he set a whole new standard.

If I ever hear "Power to the people" again, I'llà I just found out that John Lennon wrote that song, "All we are saying is give peace a chance." I couldn't believe it. I thought it was terrible; I hated that song. They used to bring out the Pete Seeger wind-up toy to sing it. Tiresome.

As an older person, I do feel an obligation to tell the story about what was really happening in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, as I saw it.

There are parallels between the 1960s and now, because during the 1960s, people were being slaughtered, their lives were being taken, there was violence, greed, drugs were rising - just all of this. And my uncle was saying, you've got to come back to faith, hope and love. Now, you get the translation and say faith, hope and charity - faith, hope and love.

And the young people in the 1960's identified with it immediately, because, I guess the young people had been having years of repression really. They felt that the, you know, after the war everything was very austere, particularly in Europe.

I can't exactly say why there's not much protest music to speak off. And I know there are acts out there still putting a message in their music.

I think my father had a lot of anti-establishment in him. He came through the '60s.

I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it.