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
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
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
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. – Elvis Costello
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
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
But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve. – Elvis Costello
Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me. – Elvis Costello
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
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. – Elvis Costello
These are the sort of things that push you on in music – the curiosity, a passion for new ideas. – Elvis Costello
‘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. – Elvis Costello
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
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. – Elvis Costello
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
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. – Elvis Costello
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
