Elvis Costello Quotes

When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.

A whole album to one writer - now that would be really interesting.

I can reach the mass audience if I come from different perspectives on every song.

I like the idea that people hear my stuff, and if it's commercially successful, that's a good sign that it's being heard.

Whenever I work on a song, my focus is on the listeners who follow my type of music.

I feel like an EP is for practice and an album is the game.

I believe in full albums, and whatever comes out of those full albums will come.

When you finish a song, your first thought is going to be, 'Is this song a hit?' I hate that we think that way, because it kind of takes a little bit of the meaning out of the songs that are being written, but you're definitely going to think, 'Can this song be put on the radio?'

I don't think I wrote my first song until I was 25. And then everything I wrote ended up becoming my first album. I put my music online, and from that, things just happened.

At the end of the day, I just like to make the best music that I can make and put it out to the world and see how they respond to it.

When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y.

I kept writing all these ballads; they're me speaking about life. But how am I gonna do the live show I wanna do if I don't have something I can dance to?

My goal is to drop 10 projects in 2013. All albums. I gotta do it. I know the 10 projects I want to drop.

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.

I had just made this album called 'Mind Blow,' a CD-R release on Spirit of Orr. This was in 2003. Quite a few of the songs from 'Was Dead' were actually on that.

If I would get an album out every eight months and if I would write songs that were more up-tempo and try to focus more on making singles, then I could probably get more attention. But I don't think the albums would be very fun to listen to, and it would be a drag for me.

When the label came to me to say, 'would you like to do another record,' I said, 'Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let's do it.' And that was pretty much it... I never stopped writing, it's just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.

If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

I actually quite like promo, which is quite odd for an artist, but recording's not the easiest thing.

Those two songs condense the two albums. They also show what the audiences wanted. I was desperate to keep the band together and find something that the public would like.

I don't write songs thinking about formats, where is it going to get played, who am I gonna please, what's the outlet for it.

If you don't write good music, people aren't going to listen to anything you say.

No one told me I had to make something that would sell, but I personally want everyone to like my music.

I think sometimes - not always - I write songs that are accessible.

I'll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I'm always writing music.