Top 100 Quotes About Elvis Costello
#1. The stuff I write I'm very proud of, but I'm smart enough to know I'll never get on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' next to Elvis Costello.
Dan Hill
#2. When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.
Nick Lowe
#3. You know, we recently played a benefit with my husband, Elvis Costello, and Sir Elton John, who is a mutual friend of ours. Playing with Elvis and Elton and accompanying them with my band was a pretty euphoric experience.
Diana Krall
#4. Theres a bunch of Elvis Costello records that made all the difference between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. A freak among other freaks
Elliott Smith
#5. Critics like Elvis Costello because critics are like Elvis Costello.
David Lee Roth
#6. Music journalists love Elvis Costello and hate me because they look like Elvis Costello
David Lee Roth
#7. I never look for music by genre. I look for an artist who puts a dependable trademark on things. Like Elvis Costello - he's a great songwriter who presents his songs in a number of contexts. I feel the same about my own music.
Todd Rundgren
#8. What happens with 'Mad Men,' it's like an Elvis Costello album; I'll watch it, and then I immediately have to watch it again. AMC will play it back-to-back. I have a tendency to yell at it when my wife's not around because if she catches me yelling at 'Mad Men,' then it gets weird.
Michael Weatherly
#9. Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.
Nick Lowe
#10. Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.
Chip Esten
#11. We've always had a lot of different influences and we've always liked catchy music from the Beatles to Cheap Trick to Elvis Costello.
Chuck Comeau
#12. I would love to hang out with Elvis Costello, to see what he's up to because he seems so fascinating to me.
Patrick Stump
#13. As for music, my tastes are eclectic. Elvis Costello is my all-time favorite. I listen to a lot of jazz, primarily the great female vocalists, and I am very fond of the late cabaret singer Nancy Lamott.
Laura Lippman
#14. I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.
Elvis Costello
#15. There's a girl in this dress,
there's always a girl in distress.
Elvis Costello
#16. And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians.
Elvis Costello
#17. You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.
Elvis Costello
#18. Clowntime is over Time to take cover While others just talk and talk Somebody's watching where the others don't walk.
Elvis Costello
#20. 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
#21. My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It's an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.
Elvis Costello
#22. It's a breath you took too late.
It's a death that's worse than fate.
Elvis Costello
#25. 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
#26. 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.
Elvis Costello
#27. Don't get smart or sarcastic
He snaps back just like elastic
Spare us the theatrics and the verbal gymnastics
We break wise guys just like matchsticks
Elvis Costello
#28. I knew I was in trouble, but I thought I was in hell.
Elvis Costello
#30. 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
#31. 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
#32. People think it is all about country music, and I know a lot of country music has come out of there, but like Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dillon was recorded there. A lot of great records; R&B records, jazz records. It's a lot of great players and great studios.
Elvis Costello
#33. It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.
Elvis Costello
#35. Oh, I know that she's disgusted,
cause she's feeling so abused.
She gets tired of the lust,
but it's so hard to refuse.
Elvis Costello
#37. For all the courage that we never had, I'm just about glad.
Elvis Costello
#38. 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
#39. The way you look I understand how you were not impressed, but I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress.
Elvis Costello
#40. Well, 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
#41. Well, I used to be disgusted.
Now I try to be amused.
Elvis Costello
#42. If it wasn't for some acci-accidents, then some would never learn.
Elvis Costello
#43. I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.
Elvis Costello
#44. I don't wanna be a lover,
I just wanna be your victim.
Elvis Costello
#45. It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.
Elvis Costello
#47. S you check your effects, check your reflection,
I'm so affected in the face of your affection
Elvis Costello
#48. 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
#49. It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.
Elvis Costello
#50. I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
Elvis Costello
#52. These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas.
Elvis Costello
#53. When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.
Elvis Costello
#54. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.
Elvis Costello
#56. The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge
and guilt.
Elvis Costello
#57. You think you're alone until you realize you're in it.
Now fear is here to stay,
love is here for a visit.
Elvis Costello
#58. A lot of pop music has come out of people failing to copy their model and accidentally creating something new. The closer you get to your ideal, the less original you sound.
Elvis Costello
#60. The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.
Elvis Costello
#61. The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel.
Elvis Costello
#62. Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent.
Elvis Costello
#64. Living a very long time would be a very scary thing.
Elvis Costello
#65. There are a few things that I regret, but nothing that I need to forget.
Elvis Costello
#66. It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.
Elvis Costello
#67. 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
#69. My grandfather and my father disagreed about music, not least of all because my dad wanted to improvise. It wasn't just that he wanted to play different music; it was just that he came off the dots.
Elvis Costello
#71. When you work with new people, I think that it throws all of the matters into relief, because you have to explain yourself every time. It's like crossing a new border. They want to see your documents.
Elvis Costello
#72. You can't live in the past, and I don't. I'm not nostalgic about my own work at all.
Elvis Costello
#73. I mistrust these people in music industry who can be everybody. This is where technology dictates to them. I mistrust that, that in somehow the chips capture the soul of a player, that's patent nonsense.
Elvis Costello
#74. So don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think
And don't try to read my mind because it's full of disappearing ink
Elvis Costello
#75. The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless but with time you see things clear and stark
Elvis Costello
#76. What's so funny about peace, love and understanding
Elvis Costello
#77. You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York ... three nights.
Elvis Costello
#78. Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up.
Elvis Costello
#79. You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.
Elvis Costello
#80. There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.
Elvis Costello
#81. Life is so strange
I don't know why
But somebody, somebody has to cry.
Elvis Costello
#82. 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
#83. Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking, when I hear the silly things that you say.
Elvis Costello
#84. I found with this record I had to really be strong-willed, because in the past I've tended to tinker and add a thing or take a thing away, and nearly always been wrong.
Elvis Costello
#85. I could say it was the nights when I was lonely
and you were the only one who'd talk.
I could tell you that I like your sensitivity,
when you know it's the way that you walk.
Elvis Costello
#86. I can't say anymore than I love you. Anything else would be a waste of breath.
Elvis Costello
#88. As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, & Understanding?
Elvis Costello
#89. When you're working with the same band you kind of know their style inside out, and even when you've been working for seven years with the same people, suddenly they'll do something you didn't even think they were capable of.
Elvis Costello
#90. Oh, I said 'I'm so happy, I could die.'
She said 'Drop dead,' then left with another guy.
Elvis Costello
#91. Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.
Elvis Costello
#92. Though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers.
Elvis Costello
#93. 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.
Elvis Costello
#96. There are many critics who have an idealised version of where my strengths lie.
Elvis Costello
#97. I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic.
Elvis Costello
#98. He's such a drag
He's not insane
It's just that everybody
Has to feel his pain.
Elvis Costello
#99. I was watching while you're dancing away,
our love got fractured in the echo and sway.
How come everybody wants to be your friend?
You know that it still hurts me just to say it.
Elvis Costello
#100. She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use.
Elvis Costello
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