A biography for Elvis Costellohasn’t been written yet.
“I find humming is very useful.”
“I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.”
“Bad lovers face to face in the morning Shy apologies and polite regrets Slow dances that left no warning of Outraged glances and indiscreet yawning Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere Even presidents have newspaper lovers Ministers go crawling under covers She's no angel He's no saint They're all covered up with white washed grease paint And you say...Chorus: The teacher never told you anything but white lies But you never see the lies And you believe Oh you know you have been captured You feel so civilized And you look so pretty in your new lace sleevesThe salty lips of the socialite sisters With their continental fingers that have never seen working blisters Oh I know they've got their problems I wish I was one of them They say daddy's coming home soon With his sergeant stripes and his Empire mug and spoonNo more fast buck And when are they gonna learn their lesson When are they gonna stop all of these victory processions And you say...”
“You think you're alone until you realize you're in it.Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.”
“But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.”
“She's no angel.He's no saint.”
“It was a real party of swells.”
“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.”
“It's a breath you took too late.It's a death that's worse than fate.”
“I could say it was the nights when I was lonelyand you were the only one who'd talk.I could tell you that I like your sensitivity,when you know it's the way that you walk.”
“'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.”
“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.”
“I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.”