I love the sound of breaking glass Especially when Im lonely I need the noises of destruction When theres nothing new.
I'm an extremely slow worker, very unprolific. It can take me weeks to do a three-minute song, or at least to make it sound, in my mind, like I haven't written it. That's when I'm satisfied.
I'm very fussy about how my records sound, but I'm very aware that because of the way they sound, I will never be a big-selling, mainstream artist because the public has gotten conditioned to hearing pop music in a certain way. And I don't do it that way.
I used to sort of take the phone off the hook, you know, put my feet up and watch the TV until it was all over.
Going to Nashville to meet the in-laws was the first time when I'd been in America and not been seen as some sort of eccentric character with a cute accent.
I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.
When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.
When my pop career was over, I was scratching my head, thinking, "God, how am I going to do something after I'm forty?" I was in my mid-thirties, thinking I was on the scrap heap.
If a hit came along, I wouldn't be unhappy about that. But I'm a bit too old for that now-doing videos and all those types of TV shows. I've kind of done all that, in the '70s.
Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.
Cruel to be kind means that I love you.
I'm really lucky that I've had a little gang of people who I've been involved with for a long time... I've been really lucky to have a gang of people who have always been there to encourage me to get on with it. Styles come and go, but I try not to take any notice of that.
I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.
If anyone comes along, I'm more than happy to welcome them, but I'm not interested in world domination.
In the '70s, you had to come up with an album every year whether you were ready or not.
I've always felt kind of like an outsider, even when I was very successful back in the old days. Even then. I kind of enjoyed it, really.
So where are the strongAnd who are the trusted?And where is the harmony?Sweet harmony -'cause each time I feel it slippin away, it just makes me wanna cry:What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?
The older I get, there doesn't seem to be anything remotely more interesting than talking about love and the lack of it and what happens when it's taken away from someone who's had it.
London was a real dump in the 70s, when it belonged to me and my friends, because, like most cities, you kind of hand them off. You're in charge for a bit and then you don't go out anymore. You say, "Oh god, it's going to be too crowded."
It was the 1950s, you know, and they had a ray gun, which was basically a flashlight with a sort of trigger on it. And it buzzed and a red light, you know, came on. But anyway we all had one - Davy Crockett hat.
And there were sort of three toys for boys and three toys for girls. And the boys I can remember was, well, there was a Dan Dare Ray Gun. Dan Dare was a sort of a cartoon character. He was just sort of a - he was like a Battle of Britain fighter pilot, only in space.
And as Craig Brown - he's an English humorist, not a comedian but he's just a writer and humorist - I'm quite a fan of. I heard him talking in a rather similar way on the radio. He said I'm the sort of person - I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was rather interesting - he said I'm the sort of person that can be reduced to tears in an empty church and feel like I'm the CEO of the Devil's organization in a full one, and I tend to feel like that as well. I love empty churches and going into them looking around, but I'm not a churchgoer at all.
And religious music and the sort of symbolism of it and everything. But I had this idea. Actually, I sort of dreamt it. I woke up - just before waking up one morning, I sort of dreamt this song or the idea of it and the first little bit of it. And I jumped out of bed and I thought, well, you're still asleep. You're going to forget this in a minute - you know, like you do when you've had a dream.
But anyway, I was convinced that it would go away, you know. But the idea was that he was sitting on a flight - you know, one of those sort of fairly long flights, like, sort of, you know, Newark to Denver or something like that - so, you know, a few hours.
And after, you know, having the old chicken or whatever it is they bring around and a couple of cocktails, you turn to the person sitting next to you and say, you know, you going home, then?