110+ Elvis Costello Quotes On Music, Tour And Beat

Elvis Costello is a British musician who rose to fame in the late 1970s. He is considered one of the most influential artists of the punk and new wave movements. Costello is known for his unique blend of punk, pop, and country music, and his witty and often political lyrics. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Elvis Costello on love, life, music.

Top 10 Elvis Costello Quotes

1. I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss.
2. I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.
3. I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
4. I feel like a juggler running out of hands.
5. I can't say anymore than I love you. Anything else would be a waste of breath.
6. Don't wear your heart on your sleeve when your remarks are off the cuff.
7. Women hear rhythm differently than men.
8. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.
9. 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.
10. I wish you luck with a capital F.

Elvis Costello Short Quotes

• History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.
• It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.
• Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.
• She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use.
• Though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers.
• Imagination is a powerful deceiver.
• I find humming is very useful.
• You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.
• There's no such thing as an original sin.
• But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.

Elvis Costello Quotes About Love

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

I'm not going to get too sentimental, like those other sticker valentines, 'cause I don't know if you are loving some body. I only know it isn't mine. — Elvis Costello

I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last. — Elvis Costello

Don't tell me you don't know what love is When you're old enough to know better. — Elvis Costello

It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for. — Elvis Costello

And 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. — Elvis Costello

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

Elvis Costello Quotes About Life

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant. — 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

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

Elvis Costello Quotes About Music

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

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

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

Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction. — Elvis Costello

[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar. — Elvis Costello

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

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

These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas. — Elvis Costello

The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel. — Elvis Costello

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

Elvis Costello Quotes About Record

You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity. — Elvis Costello

Well, T Bone's had a remarkable career as a producer since the time that we first worked together. He was dividing his time between recording and producing when we first met, and touring. We toured together and we were great friends. — Elvis Costello

Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things. — Elvis Costello

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way. — Elvis Costello

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

Anything that has to travel all the way down from your cerebellum to your fingertips, there's a lot of things that can happen on the journey. Sometimes I'll listen to records, my own stuff, and I think god, the original idea for this was so much better than the mutation that we arrived at. — Elvis Costello

Very similar experience happened last year when we released this album, North. It was on Deutsche Grammophon, it was very, very honest. It was the most honest record I've ever written. — Elvis Costello

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

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

Elvis Costello Quotes About Write

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song. — Elvis Costello

Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. — Elvis Costello

And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even. — Elvis Costello

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

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

I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises. — Elvis Costello

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

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

Elvis Costello Famous Quotes And Sayings

I'd been to Memphis before, but 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. — Elvis Costello

Don't start me talking, I could talk all night. My mind goes sleepwalking while I'm putting the world right. — Elvis Costello

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

Why can't a man stand alone? Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own? His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation They just weigh him down — Elvis Costello

Nonsense prevails, modesty fails Grace and virtue turn into stupidity While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts They still think they're the gods of antiquity If something you missed didn't even exist It was just an ideal is it such a surprise? — 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

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

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

The wages of sin are an expensive infection. — Elvis Costello

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

There's no money back guarantee on future happiness. — Elvis Costello

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

Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent. — Elvis Costello

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them. — Elvis Costello

When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down. — Elvis Costello

Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. — 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

The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music. — Elvis Costello

You swore you wouldn't shout. If it's not your punch, then it's your pout. — Elvis Costello

'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling. — Elvis Costello

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

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

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel. — Elvis Costello

Sleeping with forgiveness in your heart for me. — Elvis Costello

You'll never be alone in the bone orchard. — Elvis Costello

Obviously I got known for some other songs early on, and some of those were rock'n'roll songs. Some of them were melodic pop songs. And I've done lots of different things, as you know, but every so often I get drawn back. — Elvis Costello

There are a few things that I regret, but nothing that I need to forget. — Elvis Costello

Cause somewhere in the Quizling Clinic, there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes. — Elvis Costello

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

Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being. — Elvis Costello

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

There's so many people to see. So many people to check up on and add to your collection. — Elvis Costello

When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want. — Elvis Costello

Well there's a line that you must toe and it'll soon be time to go but it's darker than you know in those Complicated Shadows — Elvis Costello

I woke up and one of us was crying. — Elvis Costello

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

I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided. — Elvis Costello

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

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music. — Elvis Costello

I just got into it like a lot of people through the rock 'n' roll bands in the late '60s that turned to country music, like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, but particularly through The Byrds because of Gram Parsons, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman (with their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo). They kind of introduced English kids to Merle Haggard and George Jones and the Louvins (brothers Charlie and Ira). — Elvis Costello

Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up. — Elvis Costello

My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall. — Elvis Costello

Clowntime is over Time to take cover While others just talk and talk Somebody's watching where the others don't walk. — Elvis Costello

If it wasn't for some acci-accidents, then some would never learn. — Elvis Costello

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

Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters, and a German sense of humour. — Elvis Costello

You can be addicted to misery the same way as you can be addicted to drugs. — Elvis Costello

Now I just don't know who to tell to go to hell Who put the old devil in the distorted angel? — Elvis Costello

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

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel. — Elvis Costello

Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect, even your mother won't detect it, no your father won't know. they think that I've got no respect but everything means less than zero. — Elvis Costello

She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet. — Elvis Costello

My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things. — Elvis Costello

Elvis Presley and Puccini shall return. — Elvis Costello

I really thought twice about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when that came in. I always was of a mind that it's an inherently stupid idea to put something like that in a glass case. — Elvis Costello

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

Why'd you have to say that there's always someone who can do it better than I can And don't you think that I know that walkin' on water won't make me a miracle man — Elvis Costello

In the tiny torn up pieces of his mind he's irresistible too. — Elvis Costello

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

Life Lessons by Elvis Costello

1. Elvis Costello teaches us to be resilient and to never give up on our dreams, no matter how hard the journey may be.
2. He also reminds us to be true to ourselves and to never compromise our values and beliefs.
3. Lastly, he encourages us to be creative and to express ourselves through art and music, no matter what the world may think.