Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Declan Patrick MacManus, better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as part of London's pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk and new wave movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. His critically acclaimed debut album, My Aim Is True, was recorded in 1977. Shortly after recording it he formed the Attractions as his backing band. His...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth25 August 1954
CityLondon, England
There's no such thing as an original sin.
Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel.
The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
[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.
You can be addicted to misery the same way as you can be addicted to drugs.
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.
Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.
People become so deeply attached to the sound of one period that they blow a fuse when you move on. I've heard people complain bitterly about recordings they haven't even heard.
The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.