Elvis Costello

Those that have heard me play would say I've never been.

I was only moved to really pick up the guitar when I heard a record by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, which was called Man of the World.

And if you listen to it, it's a really complicated song.

But I love the song so much, I taught myself to play it.

And, you know, that was like a little miniature musical education because I learned all these chords that you wouldn't normally encounter in your first, you know, experience of playing an instrument.

And it maybe opened up my ears to the possibilities of writing because I started to write songs almost immediately after that.

And did they come easily, Elvis?

Well, yes.

You know, when you're just playing them for yourself, yes, you write some words and you have an idea and it just comes out.

But when I went back and listened to some of the recordings that we've uncovered for this collection, I heard...

I think I'd known about these recordings, but I've always kept them hidden away, to be honest, because I thought they gave away too many of my secrets.

I went, oh, that bit on that line, that sounds a bit like I think I'm Van Morrison or something.

Of course, those were the people I was listening to, and that's how you learn.

You learn by experience.

imitating to some degree.

But when I listen to them now, I don't think they sound like anybody but me.

But at the time, when I first had some success, I thought those songs were a little bit too revealing of where I got the idea from.

I don't think that's a bad, you know, I'd accept that as a description of it.

I mean, the real truth of it was I think I did know a lot of other music.

My father, having been on the radio when I was a child and then as a teenager even, he was having to sing whatever was in the hit parade.