There are five things to write songs about: I'm leaving you. You're leaving me. I want you. You don't want me. I believe in something. Five subjects, and 12 notes. For all that, we musicians do pretty well.
Elvis CostelloRead
We're all just animals. That's all we are, and everything else is just an elaborate justification of our instincts. That's where music comes from. And romantic poetry. And bad novels.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human creativity stems from our primal instincts.
In this quote, Elvis Costello suggests that at our core, humans are driven by basic animal instincts, and everything we create—like music, poetry, and literature—serves to articulate and justify these inherent urges. This perspective invites us to reconsider the depth of human expression as a reflection of our biological nature rather than an elevated or purely intellectual endeavor.
Themes
AnimalsInstinctsMusicPoetryCreation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the roots of music and art, you might use this quote to highlight the primal influences behind creativity.
More from Elvis Costello
All quotes →It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.
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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.
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Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
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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.
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I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
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