Quote

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

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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
Play
Enough
Writing
Orchestration
Time
Facility
Sight
Read
Write
Music

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Life for me is about movement.
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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.
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I woke up and one of us was crying.
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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.
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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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I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale...
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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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I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.
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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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I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.
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No use wishing now for any other sin.
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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.
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Don't tell me you don't know what love is When you're old enough to know better.
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It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.
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Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.
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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.
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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
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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.
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I wish you luck with a capital F.
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There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.
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