Elvis Costello Writing Quotations

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.

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 can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing.

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.

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.

I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. And you start talking yourself out of the bold melody and start wanting to arrange it in another key or something. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.

I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.

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.