Woody is one of my heroes. He stood for fairness and justice. He stood against racism and supported the poor and exploited. Woody exemplified the Protest song that gave rise to Bob Dylan and the sixties rebellion against the establishment.
Some men rob you with a six-gun — others rob you with a fountain pen.
The bankers and the politicians who support them have robbed the whole world. The people who hold power and pull the strings, who control the inequality and war in order to create profit, rob everyone. The system is corrupt. For someone to earn in 45 minutes more than an average man can earn from all the hard work of a full year is simply wrong.
The world is filled with people who are no longer needed — and who try to make slaves of all of us — and they have their music and we have ours.
Those people who hold the power have created a system that takes from the bottom and gives to the top. The inequality is obscene. There has to be more fairness and justice.
The best way to get to know any bunch of people is to go and listen to their music.
Music is a universal language. It transcends words.
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.
Woody sung his truth – about justice and freedom – on picket lines – to the unions and people being exploited.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that.
We are all human and should be treated with compassion. Racism, sexism and inequality need addressing.
Love is the only medicine I believe in.
He sound like Jose Mujica the Uruguayan President who said that the only good addiction is love.
A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be
who’s hungry and where their mouth is or
who’s out of work and where the job is or
who’s broke and where the money is or
who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is.
These are the songs we need more of. We need songs about real issues – there’s enough soppy love songs.
You can’t write a good song about a whorehouse unless you’ve been in one.
Woody had not only been in the whorehouses, he’d been on the road, he’d been down and out. He knew what it was like.
The words are the important thing. Don’t worry about tunes. Take a tune, sing high when they sing low, sing fast when they sing slow, and you’ve got a new tune.
The words are the important thing.
