Top 335 Folk Quotes

Folk tales and myths, they’ve lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them.

I’ve always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words. I don’t think I’m even a musician. I don’t play a lot of instruments, not really a soloist or anything.

We don’t need to bring down the rich folk to help the poor.

If we have to put music into baskets, then the progressive rock bands I fell in love with as a teenager made sounds that shaded into jazz, folk, metal, and in the case of the wonderful (and sadly missed) Jon Lord, modern classical music.

I can work across all genres of music be it classical, hip-hop, western, traditional or folk.

Endless Jane Austen film adaptations have given us the idea that the Regency was a classy, pretty, palatable period of history. Notable for their muslins, tea parties and flirting, you’d think that most Regency folk lived in highly desirable rectories.

When I met Bob Dylan, I was definitely impressed. This guy had come from the American folk world, but he was very schooled in poetry, too. He’d studied the Beat poets, of course. I grew up in the British bohemian scene. Dylan grew up in the American bohemian scene. So I was very pleased to meet such a guy.

Folk music is a bunch of fat people.

We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.

I can’t stand folk who are all snobby about reality TV.

I don’t really know what ‘folk music’ means anymore.

The big turning point, really, was the Beatles’ influence on American folk music, and then Roger took it to the next step, and then along came the Lovin’ Spoonful and everybody else.

I am basically a folk singer because I’m coming from a part of the earth where folklore means a lot. The Mediterranean is a very old part of the world, and the more a place is old, the more there is folklore.

How can I be a folk? I’m from the suburbs you know.

The first thing I would like to say is that I don’t think folk at Westminster – or for that matter at Holyrood – constitute an elite. They are representatives who are elected and who are at the service of voters who can fire them.

It’s taken folk a while to come around, hasn’t it? Even the boys in the band weren’t too sure about the whole art thing. They just wanted me to concentrate on the music. But they respect it now.

My whole life, I’ve always had one foot in the classical world and one foot in the rock, pop, and folk world.

The early influences, in many ways, were in Baltimore. I was passing open windows where there might be a radio playing something funky. In the summertime, sometimes there’d be a man sitting on a step, playing an acoustic guitar, playing some kind of folk blues. The seed had been planted.

I think one of the reasons Stephen King’s stories work so well is that he places his stories in spooky old New England, where a lot of American folk legends came from.

Even though I grew up playing folk music – and surf music, originally – I was listening to Motown and Stax on the radio as well. That music always resonated with me.

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

And no book gives a deeper insight into the inner life of the Negro, his struggles and his aspirations, than, The Souls of Black Folk.

Classical is a more refined and structured dance form. Folk is made for celebration. That’s not a very competitive dance form. Though you can bring classical on stage, folk becomes limited. Like you would love to do bhangra and garba at parties, but when you see it on stage, it is very limited in terms of movements.

I have always loved composers who have been connected with folk traditions of popular music.

I can play the main stage at the Newport Folk Festival in front of 10,000 people and do all the gigs and stuff I want to do. Then I can go home and get toilet paper on a Sunday morning and not get hassled.

I don’t compose rap songs or party numbers. I only compose folk.

I come from a school of people, folk singers, and the tradition there is troubadours, and you’re carrying a message. Now admittedly, our job is partly just to make you boogie, just make you want to dance. Part of our job is to take you on a little voyage, tell you a story.

My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center.

I was always attracted to music that moved people. Whether it be gospel, R&B, folk, hip-hop, pop, alternative rock – whatever moved people, whatever made a crowd just get lost in the moment.

I live in Harlem, New York City. I am unmarried. I like ‘Tristan,’ goat’s milk, short novels, lyric poems, heat, simple folk, boats and bullfights; I dislike ‘Aida,’ parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, buses and bridges.

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

From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes.

It’s deep in the south of India and next to Goa, but thankfully the folk who like Goa haven’t worked out that Kerala is a lot nicer and just next door. You do feel that you are discovering somewhere entirely new in Kerala. It makes you feel like you are on a totally different planet.

I suppose my little Martin acoustic guitar is quickly becoming a prize possession. It’s a lovely guitar. I bought it at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2001 before I had cleaned up.

My music is basically perceived as folk or softer rock.

Pete Seeger is a modest, unassuming, cheerful, and kind-natured man. He’s a good folk singer, if you can stand folk singing. And he’s such an excellent banjo player that you almost don’t wish you had a pair of wire cutters.

Robert Burns enriched Scottish song with his genius and is mainly responsible for the rich treasure house of song that we enjoy today. He collected folk songs, retained the melodic line, kept what words were usable and rewrote the rest. He didn’t claim ownership.

The great folk hymns are a perfect marriage of text and tune. There are those that have nice messages and some with good music, but it is such a bonus when they are both wonderful.

Folk music is where I come from originally. The very first thing that introduced me to playing guitars at all was skiffle – my cousin had been in London the summer that skiffle was big.

Gaudi was surrounded by the rich folk of Catalonia, I’ve seen a picture of him with people wearing elegant hats and drinking wine. But that’s not like me – I’m on my own.

There’s a glorious sense of freedom in comedy, just allowing myself to tell jokes, allowing myself to interrupt myself and tell old African folk stories that I made up – or didn’t – and Jamaican stories.

Folk art has never been much about politics; it’s about action and utility.

I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman’s domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told.

Trans-dating is hardcore, and it’s really scary. And that’s coming from me, someone who couldn’t be dating in a more open-minded Manhattan pool of artsy boys and creative folk. Not saying it all sucks. I’m just saying it’s not easy.

In Georgia, apparently, men are men and women are women – at least in their folk dance.

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

Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He’s the chap who makes it possible for civilised folk to despise war.

Early American music and early folk music, before the record became popular and before there were pop stars and before there were venues made to present music where people bought tickets, people played music in the community, and it was much more part of a fabric of everyday life. I call that music ‘root music.’

I love folk. I love rap.

Technically a memoir, ‘The Woman Warrior’ becomes almost magical through its inclusion of folk tales, dreams, and revisions.

Folk tales, which are usually written for children, become a bigger lesson for adults.

I feel like folk music is almost like an old recipe that is passed on from generation to generation.

I think the perception of audiences that love folk and country is they’re perceived to be more closed-minded than they really are.

Improv Olympics, Second City are some of the most tolerant, accepting people. They’re like circus folk. They’re freaks themselves.

‘Filk’ is the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy community – you get parodies, you get traditional music that’s had the words slightly modified, and you’ll also get just original works that have been written about science fiction and fantasy works, or with science fiction and fantasy themes.

Conspiracies, since they cannot be engaged in without the fellowship of others, are for that reason most perilous; for as most men are either fools or knaves, we run excessive risk in making such folk our companions.

The folk music definition has changed in this fast music world and musical styles are blending really quickly.

I was working with the computer at university and playing jazz in the daytime, buying west-coast psychedelic and early Kraftwerk records in the afternoon, and playing folk at night. I was quite busy!