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Serious music usually doesn't pay.

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
Usually
Pay
Serious
Doesn
Music

More quotes by Elvis Costello

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I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.
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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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 woke up and one of us was crying.
Elvis Costello
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When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.
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 feel like a juggler running out of hands.
Elvis Costello
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And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.
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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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
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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
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Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel.
Elvis Costello
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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.
Elvis Costello
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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
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I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
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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I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.
Elvis Costello
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Theres so many fish in the sea That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury
Elvis Costello
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I wish you luck with a capital F.
Elvis Costello
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Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
Elvis Costello