Elvis Costello Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• People become so deeply attached to the sound of one period that they blow a fuse when you move on. I've heard people complain bitterly about recordings they haven't even heard.

  Elvis Costello

  Moving, Blow, People

  9 Copy quote

• It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.

  Elvis Costello

  Scare, Damage, Songwriting

  Song: Accidents Will Happen, Album: Armed Forces, 1979

  10 Copy quote

• And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians.

  Elvis Costello

  Drinking, Heart, Comedian

  Song: The Comedians, Album: Goodbye Cruel World, 1984

  9 Copy quote

• I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.

  Elvis Costello

  Sorry, Real, People

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

• Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

  Elvis Costello

  Song, Jobs, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall.

  Elvis Costello

  Stars, Dad, Father

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

  Elvis Costello

  People, Arrogance, Speak

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. September 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things.

  Elvis Costello

  Jobs, Dad, Play

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided.

  Elvis Costello

  Beautiful, Song, Moving

  "Summit Talk". Option magazine Interview with Tom Waits, tomwaitsfan.com. July 1989.

  4 Copy quote

• When you're working with the same band you kind of know their style inside out, and even when you've been working for seven years with the same people, suddenly they'll do something you didn't even think they were capable of.

  Elvis Costello

  Thinking, Years, People

  "Summit Talk". Option magazine Interview with Tom Waits, tomwaitsfan.com. July 1989.

  4 Copy quote

• It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.

  Elvis Costello

  Song, Crazy, Guitar

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Living a very long time would be a very scary thing.

  Elvis Costello

  Long, Scary, Would Be

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• You must hold on to the sort of finger-painting aspect of music. That's something I learned, particularly from listening to Neil Young. Tom Waits is another one, because Tom's music is incredibly sophisticated and beautifully arranged, but he's using a toolbox that's unlike anybody else's.

  Elvis Costello

  Waiting, Listening, Painting

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.

  Elvis Costello

  Song, Years, Mind

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm drawing from two generations back how to think about music, how to think about why you travel to make music, what the possible pitfalls of that are for the way your life is structured. The good and bad of all of it get into the mix of what's created, what you're creating.

  Elvis Costello

  Thinking, Two, Drawing

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. December 17, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• I mistrust these people in music industry who can be everybody. This is where technology dictates to them. I mistrust that, that in somehow the chips capture the soul of a player, that's patent nonsense.

  Elvis Costello

  Technology, Player, People

  Source: tomwaitsfan.com

  4 Copy quote

• There are many critics who have an idealised version of where my strengths lie.

  Elvis Costello

  Lying, Critics, Versions

  "Interview about The Delivery Man". Interview with Brian Wise, www.elviscostello.info. April 10, 2004.

  9 Copy quote

• Why can't a man stand alone? Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own? His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation They just weigh him down

  Elvis Costello

  Men, Skins, Flags

  Song: Why Can't A Man Stand Alone?, Album: All This Useless Beauty, 1996

  8 Copy quote

• My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It's an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.

  Elvis Costello

  Children, Dad, Thinking

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• People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised.

  Elvis Costello

  People, Sometimes, Said

  6 Copy quote

• Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. And you start talking yourself out of the bold melody and start wanting to arrange it in another key or something. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.

  Elvis Costello

  Writing, Keys, Talking

  Source: tomwaitsfan.com

  6 Copy quote

• The wages of sin are an expensive infection.

  Elvis Costello

  Expression, Wages, Sin

  Song: Clean Money, Album: Get Happy!!

  6 Copy quote

• There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.

  Elvis Costello

  Future, Guarantees, Premonition

  Song: The Long Honeymoon, Album: Imperial Bedroom

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• When you work with new people, I think that it throws all of the matters into relief, because you have to explain yourself every time. It's like crossing a new border. They want to see your documents.

  Elvis Costello

  Thinking, People, Relief

  Source: tomwaitsfan.com

  6 Copy quote

• You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.

  Elvis Costello

  Voice, Instruments, Careful

  7 Copy quote

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