Elvis Costello

Elvis: Do I resent people looking for the autobiographical in my songs? No, I don't resent it. I just blame John Lennon. It's The Plastic Ono Band, that album started it all. After that, everything was supposed to be fucking confessional. The early '70s were full of all these people baring their fucking souls for public scrutiny. There were records whose authenticity depended on their confessional aspect, and if you read certain magazines and the background interviews, you knew what these songs were about. And that, for me, always used to spoil it. Particularly when you found out what dickheads some of the people were that they were writing about. I'd rather have them be like Smokey Robinson songs, which could be about anyone.

Elvis: Was I purposefully fucking up my life to give myself something to write about? I think I did that for about a year. At the very most. Then I began to mistrust the results. Because if you do that, it's like when they pour acid in rabbit's eyes or something. What does it prove? It proves that it hurts the animal. Very smart. It's unnecessary research. And I guess I did some unnecessary research for a while. Then I'd write something that would scare the hell out of me. Like there's a couple of songs on Get Happy!! that, when I read them back, I just scared the hell out of myself. And I thought, 'Uh-uh...better not think any more about this...it's going too far.' Because you can think too fucking much, you know?

Elvis: (Commercial radio) is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business ... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.