Elvis Costello Quotes

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.

I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.

Some people can't physically hear things. A kid that listens to Metallica or something can't hear that, because he's filled himself up with this stuff, he physically can't hear a banjo or a harp or something.

Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being.

I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience.

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.

I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss.

I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.

I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.

The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town.

The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music.

Funny, now I can see, how looks can be deceiving.

There was not a lot of rock n roll in the house. Our parents didnt think it was very groovy, and I tend to agree with them. If you grew up with Charlie Parker, Bill Haley wasnt very hip.

I wish you luck with a capital F.

Anything that has to travel all the way down from your cerebellum to your fingertips, there's a lot of things that can happen on the journey. Sometimes I'll listen to records, my own stuff, and I think god, the original idea for this was so much better than the mutation that we arrived at.

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.

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

I'd been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

Don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think. And don't try to read my mind, because it's full of disappearing ink.

I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.

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

These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas.

Obviously I got known for some other songs early on, and some of those were rock'n'roll songs. Some of them were melodic pop songs. And I've done lots of different things, as you know, but every so often I get drawn back.

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

Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.

You can be addicted to misery the same way as you can be addicted to drugs.

I'm goin' to take a little trip, down paradise's endless shores. They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can't get your head out of doors.

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

I'm not even sure what I want, but that's not the point - it's that I want it now.

Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.

Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.

It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.

When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.

You swore you wouldn't shout. If it's not your punch, then it's your pout.

It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.

There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.

Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.

I just got into it like a lot of people through the rock 'n' roll bands in the late '60s that turned to country music, like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, but particularly through The Byrds because of Gram Parsons, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman (with their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo). They kind of introduced English kids to Merle Haggard and George Jones and the Louvins (brothers Charlie and Ira).

And I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it.

I find humming is very useful.

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel.

Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.

Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent.