Elvis Costello Quotes
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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.
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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.
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The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.
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You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind; You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine.
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The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
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Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.
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Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
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Imagination is a powerful deceiver.
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Though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers.
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Now I just don't know who to tell to go to hell Who put the old devil in the distorted angel?
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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.
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People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.
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Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?
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It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.
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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.
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When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
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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?
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I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.
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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.
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You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.
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Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.
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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.
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Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.
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Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.