Quote of the month

I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you’ve not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

– Woody Guthrie

Check out Dust Bowl Ballads – despite the tough topics he lives up to the quote.

4 Responses to “Quote of the month”

  1. uxdesign.com

    Nice quote, but sort of ironic selling Guthrie’s dark blue collar and socialistic (in a good way, I suppose) ramblings as management inspiration.

    Reply
  2. Scott

    Some things are more important than management – I guess i don’t make it clear enough I’d rather be a philosopher than a business writer, but one step at a time.

    A more practical point perhaps is a manager of a non-profit or a union is still a manager. Not all managers work for the Fortune 500.

    Reply
  3. Dev

    Another reason why I still stick to The Beatles.

    Reply

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