The immortal Woody Guthrie has been having his 100th birthday.
From Woody and his circle in this colorful article, here are a few cherry-picked gems that I think are signposts to success in the always-on internet era:
- On control: “Anyone caught singing one of these songs … will be a good friend of mine, because that’s why I wrote ’em.”
- On truth: “The worst thing that can happen is to cut yourself loose from the people…. and the best thing is to sort of vaccinate yourself right into the big streams and blood of the people.”
- On fame: (Guthrie’s life) a “creative explosion that subdivided into thousands of subatomic particles that turned into little Woodys.”
- On attraction: “There’s a Woody Guthrie for everyone—for the patriot, the dog lover, the punk fan.”
- On complexity: “Any damn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.”
