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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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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History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.
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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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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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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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It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.
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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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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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Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.
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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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When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
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The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.
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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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People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.
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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.
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Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
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Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.
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You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.
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Elvis Presley and Puccini shall return.
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She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet.
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I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
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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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The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.