Elvis Costello Quotes

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

Death wears a big hat.

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

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

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

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'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.

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

Now Im dead, now Im dead, and you're all Going on to meet your reward. Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared? You might have never heard, but God's comic.

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding

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.

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

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.

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.

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.