Elvis Costello

"While you lie in the dark, afraid to breathe and you beg and you promise And you bargain and you plead Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus Its the big white beard I suppose. Im going up to the pole, where you folks die of cold I might be gone for a while if you need me."

"When the media attention switches away from this story onto the next thing that happens in the world, the circumstances will still be there."

"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. So we didnt visit Memphis until about 1984."

"The people with the most resources are the federal government. If you can invade a country halfway across the world in a matter of days, you can surely come to the aid of your own citizens in a shorter order of time."

"I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus is a name they could never spell ... if you think about the names of 76, 77 … I got off kind of lightly — with a name you could live with, you know, in time. … I kind of liked the dare of it. Of course we werent to know that within a month of my first album actually being issued Elvis Presley would die, and it would actually be a talking point. … Let me put it this way — people dont forget you with that name. Its sort of receded as — and this may sound terribly disrespectful and heretical — but as Elvis Presley has receded as a musical force, people make much less of a case about it. Elvis is a sort of cultural figure but there is no direct line between the music of Elvis Presley and the music of today. There is none whatsoever, hes no influence whatsoever, that I can detect, on music made today. Other than people who consciously retro in styling themselves after his ideas. There is no direct impact in the way that you can hear the influence of The Beatles or Stevie Wonder or numerous other people."

"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. I followed The Byrds a lot, and then when they did a country styled record it made me curious to know who these people were that they liked."

"Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rocknroll, but it was already a little past rocknroll when I started listening and making my own choices about music. Ive been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music."

"My sense of history in music is much greater than a lot of peoples. I listen a lot further back in the whole history of music. Its not just pop music of the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years. Im listening to stuff from hundreds of years ago as well, because you can learn from everything."

"Ive had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybodys idealised version of you."

"Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect, even your mother wont detect it, no your father wont know. they think that Ive got no respect but everything means less than zero."

"I dont feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I dont understand it or I dont have some love for some part of it. And if theres something in it that I can respond to, then theres something that I might be able to use as a composer. There are records of mine that have had smaller audiences and have provoked really drastic responses from people — particularly from critics — who maybe dont have quite enough time to live with the record or accept that a piece has its own integrity."

"I cant actually play any instrument properly. I cant read music. And heres the New York Times calling me the new George Gershwin. It was so ridiculous, really embarrassing. It was embarrassing to watch these people fall into the trap of their own critical conceits."