Quote

It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.

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
Music
Dresses
Live
Deserve
Play
Record
Writing
Songs
Records
Tour
Bits
Awards
Song
Differently
Write
Dress

More quotes by Elvis Costello

Image
Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.
Elvis Costello
Image
Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
Elvis Costello
Image
Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.
Elvis Costello
Image
I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
Elvis Costello
Image
I wish you luck with a capital F.
Elvis Costello
Image
Though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers.
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
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
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 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.
Elvis Costello
Image
And obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music.
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
Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.
Elvis Costello
Image
I feel like a juggler running out of hands.
Elvis Costello
Image
You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.
Elvis Costello
Image
You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.
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
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.
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
Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.
Elvis Costello