Elvis Costello Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Elvis Costello quote about:
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“I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“What's so funny about peace, love and understanding”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“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.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“I really thought twice about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when that came in. I always was of a mind that it's an inherently stupid idea to put something like that in a glass case.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“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 -
“My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“There are a lot of things that you can like at a distance without spending a huge amount of time pondering. It's not so complicated.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“I can't say anymore than I love you. Anything else would be a waste of breath.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“My grandfather and my father disagreed about music, not least of all because my dad wanted to improvise. It wasn't just that he wanted to play different music; it was just that he came off the dots.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“I started with rock n' roll and...then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country...Then you go back from country into American music...and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually.”
-- Elvis Costello -
“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 -
“I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.”
-- Elvis Costello