Elvis Costello Quotes

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

She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.

Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?

I used to be disgusted. Now, I'm just amused...

It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.

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.

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.

There's no such thing as an original sin.

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding

I probably would have made music but listening to Elvis Costello took my life in a completely different direction.

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

Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

I'm not even sure what I want, but that's not the point - it's that I want it now.

I wish you luck with a capital "F".

He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge.

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

Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

Oh, I said 'I'm so happy, I could die.' She said 'Drop dead,' then left with another guy.

Don't start me talking I could talk all night My mind goes sleepwalking While I'm putting the world to right.

There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.

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

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.

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

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

I took my better nature out, drowned it in a babbling stream/took the blossom of my youth and blew it all to smithereens.

Death wears a big hat.

It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it. Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.

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

Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions?" A poor little schoolboy who said "we don't need no lessons?

I went ahead and read all of George Bernard Shaw’s plays for my own pleasure, because I liked the cut of his beard.

Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking, when I hear the silly things that you say.

During the Cold War of the 1950s, American spies were issued eyeglasses with thick, clunky frames. If captured, they were trained to casually chew the curved earpieces, where fatal doses of cyanide were cast inside the plastic. It's these same horn-rimmed suicide glasses, the wrangler says, that inspired the look of Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello. All those young hipsters wearing death on their nose.

Sometimes I wonder if we're livin' in the same land. Why do you wanna be my friend when I feel like a juggler running out of hands?

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.

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

But if I’ve done something wrong there’s no “ifs” and “buts” Cause I love you just as much as I hate your guts

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.

Oh, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

I hear they're givin' you a bad reputation just because you've never been denied. You try to say you've done it all before, baby, you know that you just get tired. Yet everybody loves you so much, girl, I just don't know how you stand the strain. Oh, I, I'm the one who's here tonight, and I don't wanna do it all in vain.

Life is so strange I don't know why But somebody, somebody has to cry.

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.

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

I didn’t know anything then about odd-metered bars of music, but as Burt told me years later, you don’t count those beats, you just feel them and the tension that they create.

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

You start out imitating your heroes, and the way you fuck up becomes your style.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Can a mere song change people’s minds? I doubt that it is so, but a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

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?

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.

He's such a drag He's not insane It's just that everybody Has to feel his pain.

The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge and guilt.

..As you check your effects, check your reflection, I’m so affected in the face of your affection

Trying to be so bad is bad enough Don't make me laugh by talking tough Don't put your heart out on your sleeve When your remarks are off the cuff

There was a Fender Palomino acoustic lying in the corner in an open case, which, as you know, often symbolizes low morals or easy virtue in paintings of antiquity.

There's a girl here and She's almost you...

Well, I used to be disgusted. Now I try to be amused.

History repeats the old conceits

There is music that seems to belong to you the moment that you hear it, and music about which you must be patient, awaiting the hour when it may reveal itself to you.

Cook was then very handsome in a fey English way and dressed in floor-length, striped djellaba. In the role of the dead-eyed Spiggott, he intoned lines like “You fill me with inertia,” while appearing utterly indifferent to the beauties who danced in attendance. It was a scene that might have provided the basic blueprint for what would later become the Pet Shop Boys’ career.

Elvis Costello and the Attractions were a better band than any of their contemporaries. Light years better. Elvis himself was a unique figure. Horn-rimmed glasses, quirky, pigeon-toed and intense. The only singer-guitarist in the band. You couldn’t say that he didn’t remind you of Buddy Holly. The Buddy stereotype. At least on the surface. Elvis had Harold Lloyd in his DNA as well.

I think records started getting better again because everyone was dropping that tedious pose that there was no past. You could hear that The Clash were raiding their record collections for anything that they could turn into new songs.

Mijn broer bezit geen platen die in de top dertig staan. Dat intrigeert me. De top dertig, dat is voor de popmuziek toch wat het klassement van de Tour is voor het wielrennen? Maar voor mijn broer lijkt het een erezaak te zijn om vooral niet bovenaan te eindigen. Waar is zijn klassement dan op gebaseerd? Mijn broer luistert naar artiesten met rare namen. Julian Cope. Talking Heads. Television. Elvis Costello, Wat voor namen zijn dat? Television! Een band die zichzelf televisie noemt. Kansloze missie.

We have three core emotional needs, which I like to think of as peace, love, and understanding (thanks Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello). Negativity—in conversation, emotions, and actions—often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding). From these fears stem all sorts of other emotions—feeling overwhelmed, insecure, hurt, competitive, needy, and so on.

The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ – Kate Bush ‘Go Your Own Way’ – Fleetwood Mac ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll’ – Ian Dury ‘David Watts’ – The Jam ‘Until the Night’ – Billy Joel ‘Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number’ – Steely Dan ‘Watching the Detectives’ – Elvis Costello ‘(I Am Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear’ – Blondie ‘I Will Survive’ – Gloria Gaynor ‘Goodbye Girl’ – Squeeze ‘Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me)’ – Steve Harley ‘Girls Talk’ – Dave Edmunds ‘I Fought the Law’ – The Clash ‘Life in a Day’ – Simple Minds

Bad lovers face to face in the morning Shy apologies and polite regrets Slow dances that left no warning of Outraged glances and indiscreet yawning Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere Even presidents have newspaper lovers Ministers go crawling under covers She's no angel He's no saint They're all covered up with white washed grease paint And you say... Chorus: The teacher never told you anything but white lies But you never see the lies And you believe Oh you know you have been captured You feel so civilized And you look so pretty in your new lace sleeves The salty lips of the socialite sisters With their continental fingers that have never seen working blisters Oh I know they've got their problems I wish I was one of them They say daddy's coming home soon With his sergeant stripes and his Empire mug and spoon No more fast buck And when are they gonna learn their lesson When are they gonna stop all of these victory processions And you say...

Strict Time There's a hand on a wire that leads to my mouth I can hear you knocking but I'm not coming out Don't want to be a puppet or a ventriloquist 'Cause there's no ventilation on a critical list Fingers creeping up my spine are not mine to resist Strict time Chorus: Toughen up, toughen up Keep your lip buttoned up Strict time Oh the muscles flex and the fingers curl And a cold sweat breaks out on the sweater girl Strict time Oh he's all hands, don't touch that dial The courting cold wars weekend witch trial Strict time All the boys are straight laced and the girls are frigid The talk is two-faced and the rules are rigid 'cause it's strict time Strict time You talk in hushed tones, I talk in lush tones Try to look Italian through the musical Valium Strict time Thinking of grand larceny Smoking the everlasting cigarette of chastity Cute assistants staying alive More like a hand job than the hand jive Strict time

Sunday's Best Times are tough for English babies Send the army and the navy Beat up strangers who talk funny Take their greasy foreign money Skin shop, red leather, hot line Be prepared for the engaged sign Bridal books, engagement rings And other wicked little things Chorus: Standing in your socks and vest Better get it off your chest Every day is just like the rest But Sunday's best Stylish slacks to suit your pocket Back supports and picture lockets Sleepy towns and sleeper trains To the dogs and down the drains Major roads and ladies smalls Hearts of oak and long trunk calls Continental interference At death's door with life insurance Chorus Sunday's best, Sunday's finest When your money's in the minus And you suffer from your shyness You can listen to us whiners Don't look now under the bed An arm, a leg and a severed head Read about the private lives The songs of praise, the readers' wives Listen to the decent people Though you treat them just like sheep Put them all in boots and khaki Blame it all upon the darkies

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused...

Critics love Elvis Costello because they all look like him.

There was no way to go back. Time and the wrecking ball have taken care of the rest.

Paul McCartney was at the microphone singing Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” to an almost empty Royal Albert Hall. Many of the other performers on the bill were waiting to rehearse but had melted away to the edges of the auditorium to give him some space. Neil Finn was talking to Johnny Marr, Sinéad O’Connor was there with her son, and the emcee for the night, Eddie Izzard, was looking over the running order with Chrissie Hynde. George Michael arrived quietly and was waiting patiently for his turn to sing.

When The Attractions and I first played the Palais in January 1979, one reviewer unfavorably compared us to Freddie and the Dreamers.

Forever doesn’t mean forever anymore I said ‘forever’ but it doesn’t look like I’m gonna be around much anymore.” —Elvis Costello, “Riot Act

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

A senior BBC music programmer smarmed up to me and took this opportunity to remind me of my diminished status in his petty universe, “Of course, you’d have had a lot more hits if you’d just taken out all the sevenths and minor chords.” I suppose I would have had even more, if I’d only taken out all of the music entirely and most of the words, too.

It was a tale of doubt and betrayal, one familiar from so many country songs, but the reason these stories turn up so many times is that, for all our vanities, there are not so many ways to be a fool, or, as I wrote once, “Man uses words to dress up his vile instincts.” Anytime I strayed into an attractive but opaque image, Loretta pulled me back to the story. If the harmony became unsettling, she wanted a plain chord to serve as an anchor to your feelings. If I didn’t know it already, I found it was just as hard to write a song using simple tools as it was to turn the fancy tricks that I’d long since put away. So, we finished the song and I went back downtown to debut the number on my favorite stage in the world, the Ryman Auditorium, where I was opening for Bob Dylan that night.

We’d booked twelve weeks of studio time, a fantastic amount of leeway, given that my first record was cut in a total of twenty-four hours and This Year’s Model in a mere eleven days. We

It was a real party of swells.

Now wild-eyed with the last of his vapor, her husband leapt to his feet and bellowed a desperate, enigmatic question to the first glimmer of dawn light. “Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?” And then, out like that light, he fell back in a stupor. •

Such petty provocations became routine, but we no longer had the benefit of surprise. We played a lot of good shows back then, but the more complacent a crowd seemed, the harder we pushed, and I probably ended up appearing faintly ridiculous at times. I felt like a clockwork toy running around in green light, pulling pantomime faces in vain or in spite. I’d wind people up and then let them down. We would either thrill and amaze or disappoint and disgrace and then get out of town.

If everything you say sounds like the beginning of an argument, it is easy for someone to miss the joke and look for the smart remark, where only the heartfelt word is written.

We’re not the ones making all the false promises, then getting caught in an obvious lie or with our fingers in the till. Maybe that’s why they call them “the fortunes of war.” They can be quoted on the stock exchange.

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.

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.

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.

There was that reference to Allan Sherman’s trip to a summer camp, in “Goon Squad.” Mother, Father, I’m here in the zoo I can’t come home ’cause I’ve grown up too soon

Once I had recognized that it was not my vocation to write a happy ending, I did my damnedest to avoid one entirely. I once referred to this process as “Messing up my life, so I could write stupid little songs about it,” and I can’t improve on that description here, but then songs are never exactly taken from life.

were charged with getting the computer to obey their commands, as if it were a wild, untamable beast. They were the princes of

Don't put your heart out on your sleeve, When your remarks are off the cuff - Riot Act from Get Happy