Quote

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

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
Back
Structured
Music
Drawing
Way
Travel
Make
Created
Good
Creating
Think
Generations
Thinking
Possible
Life
Two
Pitfalls

More quotes by 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
My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things.
Elvis Costello
Image
I'm not going to get too sentimental, like those other sticker valentines, 'cause I don't know if you are loving some body. I only know it isn't mine.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.
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
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
Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.
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
They say you better listen to the voice of reason But they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason. So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.
Elvis Costello
Image
No use wishing now for any other sin.
Elvis Costello
Image
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.
Elvis Costello
Image
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.
Elvis Costello
Image
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.
Elvis Costello
Image
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
Image
I used to be disgusted now I try to be amused.
Elvis Costello
Image
I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
Elvis Costello
Image
She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use.
Elvis Costello
Image
You've got a chemistry class I want a piece of your mind You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine.
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