Wealth & Money Quote by Tom Glazer

Glazer’s line is a tidy self-portrait of the working musician as both idealist and professional: the heart and the hustle in the same breath. “For no money” lands first as a moral claim, a way of laundering the song in sincerity before anyone can question motives. It’s also a quiet flex. In an industry where payment is the usual proof of value, he’s saying the value came from somewhere else: conviction, community, a belief that art can be a public good.

Then he pivots to the more revealing engine: “because I was flattered.” The humility is performative but not fake; it’s psychologically accurate. Artists rarely create in a vacuum of pure altruism. Recognition is a currency, and Glazer admits he cashed it. The subtext is that being “recognized” turned talent into responsibility. Someone asked, someone believed he could deliver, and that social permission mattered as much as the “deep feelings about humanity.”

Context sharpens the intent. Glazer’s career sat close to mid-century American folk and children’s music, worlds where songs doubled as civics lessons and communal glue - including labor-oriented “brotherhood” ideals shadowed by Cold War suspicion. Saying he wrote it for no money also inoculates against the era’s accusations of agitprop-for-hire. It frames the song as conscience, not contract.

What makes the quote work is its refusal to romanticize purity. He doesn’t pretend he’s above ego; he admits the human mix: empathy plus the craving to be seen. That blend is exactly how a “brotherhood” song gets made - not by saints, but by people trying to be decent and, yes, appreciated.