There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world.

I never intended to make a living from music. That's the funny thing. I wanted to be a journalist.

One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.

There is no such thing as a wrong note ... just as long as you're singing along.

A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after.

I remember someone once saying, "Pete, you know you really should take voice lessons." And I said, "Well, if I could find any voice teacher that could teach me to sing like Lead Belly I'd spend every cent to study under him." But every time you'd go to a voice teacher, he'd teach you to warble, as if you'd want to be an opera singer, and that's not what I'm interested in.

I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.