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Elvis Costello [1954-0] British

Rank: 101
Musician

Declan Patrick MacManus, better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer.

Happiness, Romantic, Women

Quote	Tags	Rank
There was not a lot of rock n' roll in the house. Our parents didn't think it was very groovy, and I tend to agree with them. If you grew up with Charlie Parker, Bill Haley wasn't very hip.		101
I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.		102
People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised.		103
'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.		104
Life for me is about movement.		105
I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why.		106
Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.	Happiness	107
Living a very long time would be a very scary thing.		108
I find humming is very useful.		109
I'd been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.		110
I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.		111
It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.		112
Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.		113
I found with this record I had to really be strong-willed, because in the past I've tended to tinker and add a thing or take a thing away, and nearly always been wrong.		114
Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert's a great man, and again, you know, I don't play the guitar very good, but when I'm playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.		115
Women hear rhythm differently than men.	Women	116
My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.		117
I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.		118
And obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music.		119
And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.		120
I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.		121
Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.		122
These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas.		123
Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.		124
You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.		125
My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It's an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.		126
I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic.		201
We're all just animals. That's all we are, and everything else is just an elaborate justification of our instincts. That's where music comes from. And romantic poetry. And bad novels.	Romantic	202
Songs are more powerful than books.		203
The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music.		204
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.		205
There's no such thing as an original sin.		206
But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.		207
I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.		208
Obviously I got known for some other songs early on, and some of those were rock'n'roll songs. Some of them were melodic pop songs. And I've done lots of different things, as you know, but every so often I get drawn back.		209
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.		210
Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing.		211
There are many critics who have an idealised version of where my strengths lie.		212
Very similar experience happened last year when we released this album, North. It was on Deutsche Grammophon, it was very, very honest. It was the most honest record I've ever written.		213
Well, T Bone's had a remarkable career as a producer since the time that we first worked together. He was dividing his time between recording and producing when we first met, and touring. We toured together and we were great friends.		214
You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.		215
I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale.		216
I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.		217
You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.		218
Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.		219
I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.		220
It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.		221
I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.		222
I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.		223
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.		224
I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience.		225

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