Quote

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

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
Dancing
Stupid
Music
Writing
Thing
Really
Like
Architecture

More quotes by Elvis Costello

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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
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I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.
Elvis Costello
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I wanna bite the hand that feeds me. I wanna bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.
Elvis Costello
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Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.
Elvis Costello
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I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
Elvis Costello
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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.
Elvis Costello
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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.
Elvis Costello
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I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.
Elvis Costello
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Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.
Elvis Costello
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It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.
Elvis Costello
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Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.
Elvis Costello
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If I am frightened then I can hide it If I am crying, I'll call it laughter If I am haunted, I'll call it my imaginary friend If I am bleeding I'll call it wine But if you leave me then I am broken And if I'm broken then only death remains
Elvis Costello
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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.
Elvis Costello
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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.
Elvis Costello
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Clowntime is over Time to take cover While others just talk and talk Somebody's watching where the others don't walk.
Elvis Costello
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Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up.
Elvis Costello
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It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.
Elvis Costello
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Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.
Elvis Costello
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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
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I can't say anymore than I love you. Anything else would be a waste of breath.
Elvis Costello