Quote

I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.

Elvis Costello

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Elvis Costello
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: August 25
Composer
Guitarist
Record Producer
Singer-Songwriter
London
England
Declan Patrick MacManus
Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus
Declan MacManus
Like
Almost
Song
Sense
Felt
Seeps
True
Literal
Writing
Location
Going
Somehow
Always
Bits

More quotes by Elvis Costello

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[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.
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I find humming is very useful.
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Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.
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I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.
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Songs are more powerful than books.
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I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years.And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.
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It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.
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I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.
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The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark.
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I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
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There are five things to write songs about: I'm leaving you. You're leaving me. I want you. You don't want me. I believe in something. Five subjects, and 12 notes. For all that, we musicians do pretty well.
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Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.
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When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
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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.
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The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
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But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.
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It's what's on the record not what labels on it. You know, that's like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.
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Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.
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The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.
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I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.
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