“I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus is a name they could never spell …”

— Elvis Costello

On using the name "Elvis" as a stage name in The First 10 Years Podcast Series http://www.elviscostello.com/media.aspx - Episode Two
Context: I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus is a name they could never spell... if you think about the names of '76, '77 … I got off kind of lightly — with a name you could live with, you know, in time. … I kind of liked the dare of it. Of course we weren't to know that within a month of my first album actually being issued Elvis Presley would die, and it would actually be a talking point. … Let me put it this way — people don't forget you with that name. It's sort of receded as — and this may sound terribly disrespectful and heretical — but as Elvis Presley has receded as a musical force, people make much less of a case about it. Elvis is a sort of cultural figure but there is no direct line between the music of Elvis Presley and the music of today. There is none whatsoever, he's no influence whatsoever, that I can detect, on music made today. Other than people who consciously retro in styling themselves after his ideas. There is no direct impact in the way that you can hear the influence of The Beatles or Stevie Wonder or numerous other people.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus …" by Elvis Costello?

Elvis Costello 47

English singer-songwriter 1954

Related quotes

“I failed kindergarten because I couldn't spell my last name.”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Live at the Purple Onion (2007)

“It was a family name on my mother's side, and I thought my own name Pratt, if I ever got known in the theatre might be unfortunate.”

Boris Karloff (1887–1969) English actor

This is your Life Boris Karloff https://archive.org/details/TIYL_Boris_Karloff (1957)

“My dad was great. He was very droll, very dry. The first time that he came to London when I was in the theatre and my name was in lights for the very first time and we had the same name, and he passed the theatre with me on the way, he was going to see a matinee and me, and my mother and he passed the theatre, and I said, 'Look,' and he looked up at my name in lights, and stood there for five minutes, and I'm going, 'I want to have lunch and get back for the matinee,' and I'm with my mother, and he still stood there and so, I went back to get him and he just said, 'I never thought that I'd see my name in lights.”

Albert Finney (1936–2019) English actor

Interview with Paul Fischer at Dark Horizons (2 December 2003).

“At the very mention of your name
I get shivers down my back and in my brain.
The parts that used to function normally
are now, as you can see,
acting very strange.
Oh, at the very mention of your name
I don't know why but if I were tied up in chains
I would somehow be released
all problems too would cease
my heart would never feel no pain.
At the very mention of your name.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"At The Very Mention Of Your Name" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "At The Very Mention Of Your Name" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNpIBp-wleI (song on YouTube. (Live performance in Japan, 1993.))

“My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

“And last of all an Admiral came,
A terrible man with a terrible name,—
A name which you all know by sight very well,
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

March to Moscow, St. 8 (1814).

“Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“The first time my brothers saw me, when I was a day or two old and still in the hospital, my brother Mark could not pronounce the name "Kimberley," and I was an especially happy baby, so he decided it would be easier to call me "Happy." From that moment on, my family members never used the name Kimberley.”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

On her lifelong use of the name "Happy", in "The Happy Rhodes Interview" in Homeground #48 (Summer 1993) http://web.archive.org/web/20091023165015/http://geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/3450/homeground.html
Context: The first time my brothers saw me, when I was a day or two old and still in the hospital, my brother Mark could not pronounce the name "Kimberley," and I was an especially happy baby, so he decided it would be easier to call me "Happy." From that moment on, my family members never used the name Kimberley. I was forced, however, to use my given name while attending school. As soon as I turned sixteen, my name was legally changed to Happy Tyler Rhodes. As far as I'm concerned, it's the ony name I've ever had. When people ask me if it's my real name, I always say "yes."

“My name eet is Roberto Enricque Clemente Walker. I no use Enricque—spell him E–n–r–i–c–q–u–e —and I no use Walker. Him make too long for name. Just Roberto Clemente, thas all. This Enricque is middle name. Walker eet is my mother's name. In Puerto Rico, people she use father's and mother's name. I use Roberto Clemente in thees country.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Sidelight on Sports: A Baseball Star is Born" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=d5dRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=52sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1293%2C4057980 by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 7, 1955), p. 20
Comment: 1994 interview with Vera Clemente https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22Roberto+Enrique+Clemente%22+intitle:Remember+intitle:Roberto&num=10 confirms that Enrique was Clemente's middle name; the discrepancy in spelling is presumably due to a misunderstanding by the non-Spanish-speaking Abrams, mistaking the word "Si" for the letter c.
Other, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1955</big>

“My brothers,
They never went blind for what they did, but I may as well have.
In the name of the Father, the Skeptic and the Son,
I had one more stupid question.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Forgiven
Jagged Little Pill (1995)

“I had a lot of problems with my name … my first name Declan is really not very well known outside of Ireland, MacManus is a name they could never spell …”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Elvis Costello 47

Related quotes

Related topics