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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
Doesn
Music
Usually
Pay
Serious

More quotes by Elvis Costello

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The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
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I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.
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My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss.
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Life for me is about movement.
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Now I just don't know who to tell to go to hell Who put the old devil in the distorted angel?
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When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
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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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When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.
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I started with rock n' roll and...then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country...Then you go back from country into American music...and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually.
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Why'd you have to say that there's always someone who can do it better than I can And don't you think that I know that walkin' on water won't make me a miracle man
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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.
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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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