Arlo Guthrie

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.

My dad's songs were really written to make certain people feel as though they had some kind of value. Because they were told from where they work and from the countries they had immigrated from that they did not.

At the same time the folk boom was happening, the civil rights movement was happening, the anti-war movement was happening, the ban the bomb movement was happening, the environmental movement was happening. There was suddenly a generation ready to change the course of history.

Yes, I was born in Coney Island. The Holy Land.

Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.

I thought I would be governor of Massachusetts. I stood on a pile of my old albums and said, 'I'm the only one with a record to stand on.'

I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background.

Thank God that the people that run this world are not smart enough to keep running it forever. You know, everybody gets a handle on it for a little while.

If you do anything for 40 years, you can do it comfortably. And it will always be good. But unless you're willing to risk it being bad, it can never be great.

People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.

I left the entertainment industry part of my life behind in 1983, when we decided not to work with major record companies anymore.

Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed.

Everywhere I go, I see all kinds of people at my shows - conservatives, liberals, new-agers, teen-agers, old pensioners. And for those people to have something in common is real interesting to me.

Along with a sense of humor, my songs have to be sincere, and they have to be sung from a position of inner conviction.

I've written quite a variety of songs, everything from kids songs to political satire, and my dad covered a fairly large range, also.

Music is a nice friend to have around, whether it is just for yourself or for other people. If you can enjoy it, being professional is almost secondary.

Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that's actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.

We would turn everything into songs in those days.

You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in.

But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world.

With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition.

Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.

I don't want a pickle, just want to ride on my motorsickle.

I'd rather have friends who care than friends who agree with me.

You get people talking about being worried about their art, and dances... their culture being wiped out or taken over, and yet these same people are taking advantage of their people to use them as cheap labour.