Music and the arts feed our souls, but a decent wage puts food on the table. Musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations are a potent force to fight for social justice.
Interpretation
Art nourishes our spirit, but financial security is essential for survival.
Tom Morello emphasizes the dual importance of music and the arts, which enhance our emotional and spiritual well-being, while also highlighting the necessity of a living wage to meet basic needs. He advocates for musicians and their communities as powerful allies in the pursuit of social justice, underscoring the intersection of art and activism in addressing societal issues.
In practice
In a speech advocating for musicians' rights, this quote illustrates the balance between artistic passion and the necessity of fair pay.
Then about 12 years ago it dawned on me that folk music - the music of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, early Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger - could be as heavy as anything that comes through a Marshall stack. The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue.
The way corporate media likes to portray America is as a homogenous whole that high-five's each other at the Super Bowl. But what we have is a grotesque disparity between the rich and poor that is only getting wider.
Of course, music is an art form, and it's not all that competitive. But we don't ever intend to be the second-best band on a stage at any show.
Paul Ryan's love for Rage Against The Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades
Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what's really there.
Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.
That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision.
Writing and drawing comics for the sheer joy of it - that's true bliss.
It's dialogue that gives your cast their voices, and is crucial in defining their characters.
I'm very much of the opinion that theatre is a collective art form, not just one person's vision.
I believe that good television should be challenging and frustrating and maddening and thrilling. If you just want to see people who look like you and think like you and do what you would do in any given situation, you'd have to stop looking at TV and start looking in a mirror. But would that be as much fun?
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.