Protest Songs Quotes

Back then I was still listening to rhythm and blues, and my aunt took me to see a Pete Seeger concert. And it gelled. He made all the sense in the world to me. I got addicted to his albums, and then Belafonte and Odetta - they were the people who seemed to fuse things that were important to me into music. I think Pete the most because he did what he did to the point where he took those enormous risks and then paid for them.

I've had several working-man songs that I like.

It's always the old to lead us to the war It's always the young to fall Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun Tell me is it worth it all.

My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.

The music I grew up listening to had a message.

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

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

I don't really think of myself as a folk singer.

There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it's political issues that should be addressed.

Bob Dylan enabled rock & roll to grow up and survive. He injected the power of language and ideas into the music.

There's several ways of saying what's on your mind. And in states and counties where it ain't too healthy to talk too loud, speak your mind, or even vote like you want to, folks have found other ways of getting the word around. One of the mainest ways is by singing.

Southern change gonna come at last! Now your crosses are burning fast, Southern Man.

You go through the Civil Rights struggle, everybody knew the songs - 'We shall overcome.' Everybody would sing it. Music helped us. James Brown, 'Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud.' They helped black people figure out how to navigate what was a very treacherous place in America for them.

A pamphlet is usually read but once, but a song is heard over and over again.

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

I don't know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.

I'm a [Bob] Dylan freak, like everybody else.

Bob Dylan seems to me a totally pernicious influence - the nasal whine of death and masochism. Certainly, this would be a more cheerful world if there were no Dylan records in it. But Dylan and his audience mirror each other, and deserve each other; as Marx said, a morbid society creates its own morbid grave-diggers.

I've played hundreds of protests. I've marched on dozens of picket lines. I've strummed my guitar at innumerable demonstrations.

Come senators, congressmen, Please heed the call, Don't stand in the doorway, Don't block up the hall, For he that gets hurt, Will be he who has stalled, The battle outside ragin', Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, For the times they are a-changin'...

Actually, I'm the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

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

I've always been amused by [Bob] Dylan; I don't think he's been amused by me.