"The folk revival was riddled with contradictions, in part because it was never in any sense an organized movement. Pete [Seeger]'s interests and accomplishments were similarly broad, and at times similarly contradictory. It is always tempting to simplify a story, to give characters particular attributes or have them represent particular viewpoints. In stories about Bob Dylan, the youth culture of the 1960s, and the rise of rock, Seeger is often given the role of conservative gatekeeper, stuck in the past, upholding old rules and ideals that were perhaps noble but certainly outdated. There is some truth in that simplification, just as there is some truth in the simplification that Dylan was a cynical careerist, but both obscure more interesting stories.

Pete would quote his father, Charles Seeger: 'The truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch. One can rarely put one's hand upon it. One can only circle around and point, saying, "It's somewhere in there."' If we want to understand the folk revival, Pete is the best person to follow around the brambles, because he was always there, circling, pointing at flashes of sleek fur, perked ears, or shiny eyes--and maybe sometimes only imagining he saw a rabbit and convincing other people they saw it too, and being startled or disappointed when it turned out not to be there, or to be something else. For two or three years in the early 1960s, a lot of people circling that thicket thought Dylan was the rabbit, and at moments some of them thought they'd got their hands on him. And though he always slipped their grasp, for a few years the folk scene was certainly his bramble patch."