Pete Seeger Quotes

The Internet's changed everything. There are no record stores to hang out in anymore.

I went through my adolescence having this revelatory experience - I can have any music I want, and I can get it immediately. For me and for a lot of people I know, there's this musical eclecticism that happened.

I used to love going to shows and finding new bands, but the Internet takes the fun out of it. Like a band? You can buy and download every single song they have ever done within five minutes.

When I have to compete with John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong on iTunes, which I'm doing now, that's a problem. That means that jazz is not being heard by younger audiences.

Before the Internet, we were in a different sort of dark age. We had to wait to hear news on TV at night or in print the next day. We had to go to record stores to find new music. Cocktail party debates couldn't be settled on the spot.

The reality is, when I'm sitting in a hotel room at 3 in the morning, and I see something on the Internet that interests me in the form of a band I want to hear, I like the ability to just go online to iTunes and download it immediately.

The Internet has essentially democratized the music industry in terms of what is popular and it's democratized the music journalism industry as well.

Internet, for all its faults, exposed me to a lot more music.

The business has changed dramatically from what it was even just a few years ago. Music isn't even distributed the same way anymore. Even CDs are becoming a thing of the past. The Internet has made it easier to get my music out to anyone who wants it, but at the same time, I feel like we're losing the mystique.

Now everything is available at the push of a button, and that thrill of the search is gone. With vinyl albums and special edition releases, I feel like that's coming back.

The human race has always defined itself through narration. That isn't going to change just because we've gone electronic. What is changing is that now we're allowing corporations to tell our stories for us.

The Fugazi Live Series site, when we realized the Internet, the way it works - the speeds and its development - made it possible to have one source of infinite copies, was incredible for us. Using tapes or CD's to make copies would have been so unwieldy. We have shows that have zero downloads, which makes me sad, but they're all freely available at any time. The most downloaded show was the one with the best audio quality, but I didn't think it was a very interesting show.

I don't think that digital technology will ever take away the humanity of storytelling, because storytelling is entirely, in and of itself, a wholly human concern.

I think that live music is something that the Internet can never kill.

We're going through this super-uptight era, which I think comes entirely from literacy, actually. It's the result of machines that were designed as word processors being used for making music.

I love that I can stay connected with my fans and be able to tell them what's going on - their opinions are so important to me. But at the same time, it's very weird. I think the Internet can be a great thing but also really evil. Something can instantly hurt your feelings.

When I talk of reality, I am always thinking of essentials. Profundity is not located in some remote, inaccessible region. It is rooted in everyday life.

Myth and poetry represent a reservoir of vertical thinking, which we could also call longing and gratitude to ancestors. We need that gratitude desperately.

I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.

I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.

Our words can have power that we don't think we have in everyday life - anyone can make a difference.

​W​e're so used to having everything we want at our fingertips so I think that when things get tough it's ​difficult ​for people to persist through that.

I understand that and I have had very candid discussions with Saudi leaders in the past. I respect their culture and their heritage and their traditions, but I think that they now, as they move forward, will have to start examining these traditions and these practices to see whether or not change is appropriate.

I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am.

They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.