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" I find humming is very useful. "
Elvis Costello
Useful
Very
Humming
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" I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused. "
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" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Up
Rock
Think
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Different
Everything
Music
" I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic. "
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Day
School
Think
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Jazz
Group
Work
" I've never felt British. I'm just not interested in national identity. I don't know why. "
Elvis Costello
Just
Why
Identity
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Think
Music
I Can
" I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience. "
Elvis Costello
Experience
Life
Most
" Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that. "
Elvis Costello
Happiness
Cookie
More
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Way
Audience
Know
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Listening
People
Choices
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Together
Will
Singer
" Living a very long time would be a very scary thing. "
Elvis Costello
Scary
Living
Time
" But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve. "
Elvis Costello
Things
Delivery
Achieve
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Last
Most
Honest
" Songs are more powerful than books. "
Elvis Costello
More
Books
Than
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Say
Sometimes
You
" These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas. "
Elvis Costello
You
Passion
Curiosity
" I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale. "
Elvis Costello
Just
Travelling
Scale
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Time
People
Late
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Writing
Song
Music
" There are many critics who have an idealised version of where my strengths lie. "
Elvis Costello
Strengths
Where
Who
" I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies. "
Elvis Costello
I Believe
Music
Connected
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
You
Move On
Sound
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Face
Opportunity
Reputation
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
True
Writing
Like
" I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself. "
Elvis Costello
You
Yourself
Find
" Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me. "
Elvis Costello
Harmony
Because
Me
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Man
Good
Great
" 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. "
Elvis Costello
Romantic
Music
Bad