Elvis Costello Quotes
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Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.
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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).
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I'm goin' to take a little trip, down paradise's endless shores. They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can't get your head out of doors.
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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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People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.
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Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.
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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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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.
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You think you're alone until you realize you're in it. Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.
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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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Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.
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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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Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.
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Commercial radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.
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There are a lot of things that you can like at a distance without spending a huge amount of time pondering. It's not so complicated.
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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.
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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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History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.
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Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
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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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I wish you luck with a capital F.
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The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.
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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.
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When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.