Pete Seeger on learning from Woody Guthrie, 2001

I learned the genius of simplicity. He didn't try and get fancy, he didn't try to show how clever he was. He had done a lot of thinking, and he read voraciously. I remember the time he got hold of Rabelais and got through it all in one or two days, and in the following weeks you could see him trying some of the same stylistic tricks of piling on adjective after adjective. However, he once said, "I must steer clear of Walt Whitman's swimmy waters." I think he decided that if he was going to write songs, he wanted the lines to rhyme, and he liked things to be in meter.

From a Pete Seeger interview in Acoustic Guitar.

For a thrilling, chilling read, check out this transcript of Pete Seeger's interrogation by members of the congressional Committee on Un-American Activities, August 18, 1955.