Elvis Costello Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it's a really stupid thing to want to do.

Elvis Costello
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
The first song that most people picked up on, particularly in America, of mine, was a ballad, not a rock'n'roll song. It was 'Alison', and that's an R&B ballad. I don't think there's any other way to describe it.

Elvis Costello
I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it. And if there's something in it that I can respond to, then there's something that I might be able to use as a composer. There are records of mine that have had smaller audiences and have provoked really drastic responses from people — particularly from critics — who maybe don't have quite enough time to live with the record or accept that a piece has its own integrity.

Elvis Costello
I can't actually play any instrument properly. I can't read music. And here's the New York Times calling me the new George Gershwin. It was so ridiculous, really embarrassing. It was embarrassing to watch these people fall into the trap of their own critical conceits.

Elvis Costello
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
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. I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.

Elvis Costello
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. I followed The Byrds a lot, and then when they did a country styled record it made me curious to know who these people were that they liked.

Elvis Costello
These are the sort of things that push you on in music — the curiosity, a passion for new ideas. It's important to keep restoring that, and at the same time, hold on to the core things about music that whenever you pick the simplest form of instrument; guitar or piano, you can find a song that's worthwhile.

Elvis Costello
We stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time. So we didn't visit Memphis until about 1984.

Elvis Costello
The people with the most resources are the federal government. If you can invade a country halfway across the world in a matter of days, you can surely come to the aid of your own citizens in a shorter order of time.

Elvis Costello
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of their shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls.

Elvis Costello
My sense of history in music is much greater than a lot of people's. I listen a lot further back in the whole history of music. It's not just pop music of the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years. I'm listening to stuff from hundreds of years ago as well, because you can learn from everything.

Elvis Costello
To me, getting it wrong is just another original idea. Ninety per cent of pop music is trying to copy something and getting it wrong.

Elvis Costello
Then I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing, because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

Elvis Costello
WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause offence to narrow minded listeners.

Elvis Costello
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
When the media attention switches away from this story onto the next thing that happens in the world, the circumstances will still be there.

Elvis Costello