Elvis Costello Quotes

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

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...

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.

The boy said 'Dad they're going to take me to task But I'll be back by Christmas' It's just a rumour that was spread around town Somebody said that someone got filled in For saying that people get killed in The result of this shipbuilding With all the will in the world Diving for dear life When we could be diving for pearls.

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.

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

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

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

I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus is a name they could never spell ... if you think about the names of '76, '77 … I got off kind of lightly — with a name you could live with, you know, in time. … I kind of liked the dare of it. Of course we weren't to know that within a month of my first album actually being issued Elvis Presley would die, and it would actually be a talking point. … Let me put it this way — people don't forget you with that name. It's sort of receded as — and this may sound terribly disrespectful and heretical — but as Elvis Presley has receded as a musical force, people make much less of a case about it. Elvis is a sort of cultural figure but there is no direct line between the music of Elvis Presley and the music of today. There is none whatsoever, he's no influence whatsoever, that I can detect, on music made today. Other than people who consciously retro in styling themselves after his ideas. There is no direct impact in the way that you can hear the influence of The Beatles or Stevie Wonder or numerous other people.

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.

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.

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

Oliver's army is here to stay Oliver's army are on their way And I would rather be anywhere else But here today.

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

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