Quote

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.

Elvis Costello

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Wells
Musician
Well
Songs
Writing
Subjects
Something
Pretty
Believe
Five
Things
Song
Musicians
Write
Notes
Music
Leaving

More quotes by Elvis Costello

Image
As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, & Understanding?
Elvis Costello
Image
There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.
Elvis Costello
Image
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.
Elvis Costello
Image
Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.
Elvis Costello
Image
[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
Image
The people with the most resources are the federal government. If you can invade a country halfway across the world in a matter of days, you can surely come to the aid of your own citizens in a shorter order of time.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Elvis Costello
Image
Life for me is about movement.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
Elvis Costello
Image
What do we care, if the world is a joke? We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke. Death wears a big hat cause he's a big bloke.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant, someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere hum-drum quality of existence.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
I used to be disgusted now I try to be amused.
Elvis Costello