Chords for Elvis Costello and the Attractions accept award Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 2003

_ _ [C#] _ _ [Fm] _ _ [Bm] I just, I have to thank Sir Elton for that very eloquent and [A#] very complimentary and [N] deeply profane speech. _ _
[Bm] _ _ I just really, he's [F] completely, I'll go along the way he started, he's [Bm] completely f***ed
up for me now because he's just made a list of all the people I was going to mention.
But he did make a mention of Mimar and Parmi and [E] I do want to thank them for teaching me
[Bm] to listen and making me curious.
I also want to thank Jill Taylor and Lou Difford for their care and advice and friendship [F#] and
all the people at my office by Eleven.
I particularly want to thank Paddy Callaghan, Robbie McLeod, Milo Lewis and everybody in
our crew over the years, everybody that's been in our crew that's actually got us to
the gigs and sometimes propped us up at the microphone long enough to play [C] a set.
We want to [F#] send out a little personal note, I just want to send out lots of love [Bm] to Flaky
and Vivo who are not here tonight.
But [N] I want to thank my agent, Marsha Vlasic, my agent of 25 years for her love and dedication
and tenacity which allowed us to keep on playing the [F#] music after the record company
had lost [G] interest, which [Bm] was fairly regularly.
_ And a gentleman who's going to be on a little bit later, I want to thank Mo Lenny and Steven
for letting me make some bold records in the last days before the corporate radio's came
and f***ed up the record industry completely.
_ _ Finally I'd like to thank Chris [F#] Roberts at Universal Classics because [G] if it wasn't for
his [C#] ideas I probably wouldn't be making [B] records at all right now.
Obviously there are the producers that we work with, Elton mentioned Nick Lowe, [F#] the
first man that I ever knew that was in a band [B] and _ _ I have absolutely no idea [A#] why Nick is
not standing up here with us picking up [G#] one of these, he definitely should be in the Rock
[Bm] and Roll Hall of Fame.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] There are some people without whose [G] example I wouldn't be writing or singing and if you'll
bear with me just a second, feel free to cheer if you hear any names you love, but
these are the people that mean [Bm] a lot to me.
_ _ Franz Schubert, _ _ _ _ Leonard McCartney, _ _ Rodgers and Hart, Sturman Jones, [E] Different and Tilbrook,
Holland O.
Holland, Randy Newman, Brian Wilson, Dusty [G] Springfield, Graham Parsons, Georgie
Fame, Curtis Mayfield, Dan Penn, Charles Mingus, Tom Waits, Frank Sinatra, George Jones, David
Backels, Sonny Bo Williamson, Van [B] Morrison, Rick Danco and most of all Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#] _ [G] Obviously you can't really imagine when you listen to the radio and my dad was bringing
home stacks of records when I was nine years old that one day I'd be writing songs with
Paul McCartney or Bert Bacharach, but the other people that he mentioned that probably
lie outside a lot of people's definition of Rock and Roll, Ansel Feeb and Arthur, the
Brodsky Quartet, Roy Nathanson, the Fairfield Four, Chet Baker, these people, they taught
me a tremendous amount, [B] but it's the musicians that [Bm] I've worked with and I've had the [G] real
great pleasure and privilege to work with a number of bands that are not the Attractions,
the Confederates, the Route 5 [Bm] and the Imposters, but the band that really deserves the credit
for starting the whole thing going are two members of the Imposters who are also members
of the Attractions, Pete Thomas, who I _ [N] actually _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ [G] believe is the greatest rock drummer in the
world [Bm] and it _ was with the money of a major record company that we managed to get him
back from California to play [F] on my second album, [F#] so we've been swindling the business
all this time and they still haven't found out.
Steve [Bm] Naive _ _ _ was _ _ _ _ _ I think 19 years old when we kidnapped him from the Royal Academy and
[A] I don't know whether he was destined [E] for the concert platform [F#] playing classical music,
but he's brought every kind of [G] artistry to the songs that I've written, whether it be
rock and roll [F#] or ballads, and we've also toured together and it's a tremendous [G] joy to play
with him at any time and he's a wonderful composer in his own right.
And last of all, [F#]
Bruce, who [Am] played the great bass lines on all of the records for the [B] Attractions, _ _
_ _ [Bm] it's no big secret that we haven't always got [A#] along, but [B] I've got to say [G] that seeing
[F#] Luce and Joe Strommer's daughters down there makes me [G] realise that this is not the place
for airing petty grievances and things that are obscure to all of you.
[Bm] I really want to
say I miss Joe very much and he was [G] a great, great man.
_ [F#] Ladies and gentlemen, the best man in the world, The [B] Attractions.
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _