All of us are subject to being passive to the social ills around us. It's a struggle not to become, by staying silent, an accomplice.

There has to be a certain amount of love just in order for you to survive together. I think a lot of groups have gone down the tubes because they were not able to relate to one another.

I was raised to believe that everybody has a responsibility to their community.

Folk music has always contained a concern for the human condition. And since it brings people into it from different points of view, that can help illuminate what a consensus might be to important issues.

Folk music has a sort of a bubbling-under quality. The stream runs through the cultural consciousness, and whether or not it's on the radio is not the issue. Folk music is always there.

The fact that there are singer-songwriters dealing with substantive issues is encouraging. It's important for young people to perceive that there are acceptable avenues of dissent, because we live in a world where dissent is hard-pressed; treated as if it were unpatriotic. I've always liked the concept of the loyal opposition. It allows for dissent to be a respectable part of the whole.

When the fad changed from folk to rock, they didn't take along any good writers.