Elvis Costello Lyric Quotes

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.

But it's easier to say 'I love you', than 'Yours, sincerely' I suppose.

There's a girl in this dress, there's always a girl in distress.

She's no angel. He's no saint.

I don't wanna be a lover, I just wanna be your victim.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

It's a breath you took too late. It's a death that's worse than fate.

So you take her to the pictures, trying to become a fixture. Inch by inch trying to reach her, all the way through the second feature. Worrying about your physical fitness, tell me how you got this sickness?

With the shower on full blast, I crank my Wet Tunes, the hope being that I can drown out one song in my head with another. Better yet, maybe they’ll play the same song, so I can hear the lyrics and figure out what it is. Somehow, I don’t imagine myself being that lucky. The shower does feel good, though, so I stay in there for a while. As the water cascades over my head, I begin to relax. I’ve got the radio tuned to WFUV, the college radio station out of Fordham, and they’re playing “Alison” by Elvis Costello, one of my favorites. Before I know it — and just as I hoped — it’s the only thing I hear between my ears. That is, until the song ends and some guy comes on reading the news. I whip back my head from the shower spray. I could swear he said something about a tragedy at the Fálcon Hotel. But that’s not what has me shaking like a leaf as I try to towel myself dry. The radio newsman didn’t say it happened yesterday. He said it happened this morning. Thirty minutes later, Michael hasn’t called, but I’m heading out the door of my place. I turn my key to double-lock it. And — “Ms. Burns? Ms. Burns?” Not again. It’s way too early to face the Wicked Witch on Nine. I turn — and it’s even worse than I thought. Mrs. Rosencrantz has brought a bald old man, who towers over her despite his being no more than five-foot-five, six tops. “You were screaming and screaming,” she practically screams in my face. “You woke up my Herbert. He heard it. Ask him, Ms. Burns.” I don’t ask Herbert.

My first lyric departed directly from Mingus’s title “This Subdues My Passion.” If you didn’t think the song was already half written after that title, then you had no business dallying with the tune in the first place. I wrote about the way that music tempers the violence within a man. This subdues my passion And it may control my rage It may stem the poison that spills out onto the page