Creativity Quote by Tom Glazer

Glazer is defending anonymity as a feature, not a flaw - a quiet flex against a music economy that treats authorship like a brand and a revenue stream. By pointing out that “we don’t know their composers,” he’s not mourning lost credits; he’s arguing that folk tradition gains power when it sheds the ego. The song survives because it belongs to the room, not the writer.

The line about “no commercial purpose” is doing more than setting historical scene. It’s a values statement: these songs weren’t engineered for the market’s approval, so they carry different pressures and different freedoms. They can be blunt, repetitive, local, even contradictory. They can change without anyone filing a lawsuit. Glazer’s subtext is that commerce doesn’t just sell music; it standardizes it. Folk, by contrast, stays porous - revised by memory, mishearing, and necessity.

“Passed down by word of mouth” frames music as social infrastructure. The medium matters: oral transmission favors catchy melodies, simple structures, and lyrics that compress lived experience into portable lines. It also makes authorship inherently collective. Every singer becomes a co-writer, every performance a small edit, which is why folksongs can feel both ancient and weirdly current.

Coming from a 20th-century musician known for educational and children’s music, Glazer is also staking out legitimacy. In an era of copyright, radio hits, and star-making machinery, he’s reminding listeners that some of the most durable music was built to travel, not to be owned.