Top 1200 Folk Songs Quotes & Sayings

I'm a folk preacher. A folk therapist. A folk musician. I come from authentically that which is of my experience. Therefore, the music is strictly from the soul, strictly improvisational.

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs.

Cornelius Cardew very famous in Britain, because he was the darling of the avant-garde, and he played in a band called AMM, which was an improvising band in the '60s. Paul McCartney used to come watch them. Later on in life, he became disenchanted with avant-garde music, because he felt it couldn't reach the public. It didn't have a wide enough appeal. So he'd take these tunes of old English folk songs and write Stalinist lyrics over the top of them. I do think that when he changed to folk songs, he actually lost the tiny audience he already had, which is quite interesting.

I've been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn't, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.

Folk songs in general, I like. The old spooky Scottish folk songs.

I think there's a difference between the type of folk music that people put into the box of "folk music" and then there's the kind of folk music that I aspire to and am in awe of, and that is the kind of folk music where it's very limited tools - in most cases a guitar, in a self-taught style that is idiosyncratic and particular to that musician.

I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing 'em.

From a young age, I was encouraged to sing, dance and learn folk and popular songs in Spanish.

The Marathi film 'Natrang' has amazing songs. I also like and have sufi and folk music.

Folk songs, whatever else they might be, are mainly craft.

I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing them.

I went to school for folk music back when I was a teenager and learned hundreds of songs.

Northeastern folk music influenced me from a very young age. Sachin Dev Burman is one of the inspirational musicians in Indian film music. The way he fused folk music with his signature style is amazing. So, I am aware of the beauty of northeast folk music.

When I think of folk music, I think of topical songs. And I don't write topical songs.

The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals.

There are no bridges in folk songs because the peasants died building them.

Quite a few of The Rolling Stones records have had a great honesty about them. In fact, I would put them side-by-side with a 'Treasury of Folk Music' collection, containing all the prison songs, the farm and road-gang songs that were recorded on the spot in the Deep South.

If someone asked what kind of music I play, I wouldn't say I'm a folk singer; however, if folk music means music for the people, and playing music to entertain them and share different messages, then sure, I'd like to think that I'm part folk singer.

The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses.

There was a time that I was only known for being a plagiarist. It used to hurt at times because there was so much effort I was putting into music. And instead of that, it was a couple tunes that I had reproduced from folk songs to remake as film songs, which were being written about.

That's one of the things I like best about folk music is the beautiful melodies - and the harmonies - that exist in it. And of course, some of the stories, the story songs.

I used to go to the school folk club with my songs when I was only 13 or so and say "this is a traditional folk song" and sing it with a bad Irish accent to disguise the real source.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

People sing each other's songs and they cultivate standards. That's the reason why we have folk music and folk stories. History is told through song.

I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the '30s and '40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo.

Cornelius Cardew's folk songs were very, very literal, and they were just about workers smashing their chains. It was like reading Das Kapital over a folk-song melody, and it's a spectacular failure, in my opinion.

As I was born and brought up in Himachal Pradesh, I used to listen to a lot of Hindi songs over radio apart from ghazals, western music, and 'Himachali' folk songs.

From chain gangs to folk songs to intelligent soul, America has created musicians dedicated to truth, justice, and a better American Way.

Blues songs, like folk songs, are a continuous stream, and catching the continuities and thefts is part of what puts meaning and complexity into it - also part of the fun of it all.

The first songs I learned were 'It Takes a Worried Man' and Woody Guthrie's 'Grand Coulee Dam,' 'Rock Island Line' - those kind of American folk songs that were probably on the edge of blues. After that was Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry songs. And then I heard Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Big Bill Broonzy on the radio.

I like folk songs, but ten horses couldn't bring me to a concert or an opera.

I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion.

I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on electric instruments and dabbled in different things.

I used to have a protest folk band in high school, and I wrote all my own songs. Then, in the B-52s, we would write collectively.

You can't trust folk songs. They always sneak up on you.

When I do older folk songs, I'm not doing them because they're old. I have no interest in reviving or continuing a tradition. I'm just doing them because they're great songs.

I fell in love with folk music at Surprise Lake Camp. It was the songs of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers.

Folk songs express the dreams and prayers and hopes of the working people.

My favorite Bob Dylan record is the very first one where he sings one Bob Dylan song and the rest of them are his interpretations of the Dust Bowl-era folk songs, or even going back as far as the mass influx of people coming into the U.S. during the gold rush. His interpretations of those songs are incredible.

Well, I didn't go to Julliard or anything. I'm basically self-taught. When I was younger, I wrote folk songs on a guitar my father gave me.

I can go from doing an electronic track to hip-hop to even folk songs. I think people like that variety in me.

Folk music is not so much a body of art as it is a process, an attitude, and a way of life; its distinguishing features lie not within the songs themselves, but in the relations of those songs to a folk culture.

Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. 'Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious.' And I said, 'Right.'

My older brother was involved in the folk movement. We would gather every weekend in Washington Park. The folk songs were so important to my reality.

Folk music - and what people are now perceiving as being folk music - is music that's quite close to the ground. The songs sound quite old, even if they're new. They sound like they've been sung by different people for years.

Anything that anybody wants to give me is great! I've had folk songs, heavy metal songs, jewellery... I would never call anything any fan gives me weird, as it's how people express what they like about the books, what it means to them, and that's a wonderful thing.

There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both.

Folk songs are evasive-the truth about life, and life is more or less a lie, but then again that's exactly the way we want it to be. We wouldn't be comfortable with it any other way. A folk song has over a thousand faces and you must meet them all if you want to play this stuff. A folk song might vary in meaning and it might not appear the same from one moment to the next. It depends on who's playing and who's listening.

If you want to understand a nation, look at its dances and listen to its folk songs - don't pay any attention to its politicians.

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

I think that anything is a form of folk music. That's just me being glib, but the thing I like the best about humans, and there are not many other things besides this, is that humans make culture. If you're an artist, a big part of folk is noticing what other people are doing and incorporating it and changing it - the way that songs warp and change over time.

We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.

Songwriters I've always been drawn to are people who deal with something of depth in the lyric writing. ...I've always been influenced by the folk song, the storytelling tradition in folk music. And so for years I wrote mostly story songs. I still do that, but as I've gone on, it's gotten a little more personal. I used to write mostly in the third person. I write a little more in the first person now.

Bare Foot Folk and is full of really interesting songs, Ange Hardy takes folk tales and creates new folk songs that sound traditional around the story. This is one she's called mother willow tree, it's beautiful

I have sung as many as 6,000 songs of various hues, be they classical, pop or folk songs. I have even performed free of charge for the Maharashtra government.

American folk songs were about tragedy, right? They were about suffering and tragedy, and a lot of my songs are about that, even though they were misunderstood.

I've always loved the songs of the sea. I was first introduced to them back in 1957, at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I used to go to Pete Seeger concerts, and he would do songs like 'Ruben Ranzo' and talk about how the sailors sang songs to do their work - to raise the anchors, pull up the sails and that sort of thing.

A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control ... his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music.