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Who really said it

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture

Not Elvis Costello — Martin Mull said it first Martin Mull 1943–2024 · American comedian, musician, actor and painter
Disputed In copyright

Costello really did say it — in Musician magazine no. 60, October 1983 — but he did not coin it, and in Q magazine’s March 2008 issue he asked to be let off the hook in print and credited Martin Mull instead. The first close match Quote Investigator can document ↗ is a 18 February 1979 “Bob Talbert’s quotebag” column in the Detroit Free Press, which credits Mull. No recording, script or manuscript of Mull actually saying it has ever surfaced, so QI calls him the “leading candidate,” not a proven author.

Last verified 8 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” attributed to Martin Mull (1943–2024). Earliest close match: "Bob Talbert's Quotebag," Detroit Free Press, 18 February 1979, p. 19C. Widely credited to Elvis Costello, who used it in Musician magazine in October 1983 but denied coining it in Q magazine, March 2008. Research: Quote Investigator. Via quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Elvis Costello. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Martin Mull; the 1979 column text, Detroit Free Press). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Martin Mull — American comedian, musician, actor and painter. Theme: "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The first time it appears in print

First close match
“Bob Talbert’s quotebag,” Detroit Free Press
Date
18 February 1979 · page 19C, column 5
Credited there to
Martin Mull, “comedian-musician on music criticism”
Costello’s use
Musician magazine no. 60, October 1983, p. 52

Martin Mull . . . . . . Comedian-musician on music criticism: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Detroit Free Press, 18 February 1979

A quotebag column, so there is no surrounding context — just the credit and the line. Quote Investigator notes the ellipsis dots are in the original. The fuller context comes later, from Costello in Musician, October 1983: “Framing all the great music out there only drags down its immediacy. The songs are lyrics, not speeches, and they’re tunes, not paintings. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.”

Quote Investigator: the full citation trail, 1918 to 2008

How the line was traced

  • 1918–1930 — the ancestor joke. The New Republic of 9 February 1918 carried “Strictly considered, writing about music is as illogical as singing about economics” (H. K. M., “The Unseen World,” Vol. 14, p. 63). Winthrop Parkhurst reshaped it as a simile in The Freeman on 5 October 1921 — “talking about music is like singing about economics” — and repeated it in The Musical Quarterly in July 1930. All three are cited by Quote Investigator ↗; the 1918 issue is digitized at the Internet Archive ↗.
  • 18 February 1979 — the swap to dancing and architecture. “Bob Talbert’s quotebag” in the Detroit Free Press prints the modern wording and credits Martin Mull. Quote Investigator ↗ calls this the first close match and says it is not clear how Talbert heard the line.
  • Later in 1979 — Mull’s name is already attached. Gary Sperrazza used it in a Sam & Dave profile in Time Barrier Express, September–October 1979: “writing about music is, as Martin Mull put it, like dancing about architecture.” By December 1979 critic Thomas McGonigle was calling it “the famous Martin Mull dictum” in Arts Magazine — though in a painting-swapped form, “Writing about painting is like dancing about architecture.” Wikiquote cites the Sperrazza piece ↗ as the source for its Mull entry.
  • 1983 to 2010 — Costello inherits it, then hands it back. His October 1983 Musician interview was for years the earliest known citation, which is why the line reads as his. In Q, March 2008, he asked to be cleared in print and named Mull. In 2010 blogger Mike Johnston asked Mull’s art dealer Carl P. Hammer to put the question to him, and reported: “Martin confirmed that he is indeed the originator of the famous one-liner.” All documented by Quote Investigator ↗, which notes the confirmation travelled through three people.
In copyright

Everything documented about this line is modern. Its first known publication is a Detroit Free Press column of 18 February 1979, and the best-known printing is Elvis Costello’s in Musician in October 1983 — both far later than the 1931 US public-domain threshold, so no public-domain claim is available here. The eight-word aphorism itself is short enough that its copyright status as a standalone sentence is untested, and because no original manuscript, script or recording by Mull has ever surfaced, even the underlying authorship is a leading candidacy rather than a settled fact. Quote briefly and with attribution.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Everyone it has been pinned on

This may be the most redistributed one-liner in music writing. Quote Investigator ↗ opens its investigation by listing Laurie Anderson, Steve Martin, Frank Zappa, Martin Mull, Elvis Costello, Thelonious Monk, Clara Schumann, Miles Davis and George Carlin as people credited with concocting it. Here is who actually did what.

Elvis Costello Disowned it himself

He used it in Musician magazine in October 1983 — “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it’s a really stupid thing to want to do” — and for years that was the earliest citation anyone had, which is exactly why the line stuck to him. Asked about it in Q magazine’s March 2008 issue he replied: “Oh, God! Can I please put in print that I didn’t say that! I may have quoted it, but I think… Martin Mull coined that. It still follows me around, that one.” Wikiquote files it under Misattributed ↗.

Frank Zappa Newspaper subtitle, 1985

The Los Angeles Times of 18 June 1985 ran the variant “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” as a subtitle credited to Zappa, in an article by Kenneth Herman. That is six years after the line was already in print credited to Mull, and Quote Investigator ↗ presents no earlier Zappa source.

Laurie Anderson On screen, 1986

She flashed the “Talking about music…” variant on the rear projection screen in her 1986 concert film Home of the Brave, which a Philadelphia Daily News review of 18 July 1986 noticed. Asked point-blank on NPR’s Morning Edition on 14 January 2000 whether she had said it first, she answered: “Oh, no, no. It’s one of my absolute favorite quotes” — and credited Steve Martin (transcript excerpt at QI ↗).

Steve Martin A chain of guesses

Anderson’s 2000 NPR attribution is the best-known source for the Steve Martin version, and it is hearsay. Quote Investigator ↗ documents no citation in which Martin says or writes the line himself.

Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, George Carlin, Clara Schumann Pure drift

All four appear in the roster of people credited with the saying at the top of the Quote Investigator ↗ investigation, and the article’s chronological run of citations produces no source in which any of them says it. In Schumann’s case the credit is chronologically hopeless: she died in 1896, decades before even the 1918 ‘singing about economics’ precursor.

The wording that survives — dancing about architecture — first reaches print on 18 February 1979 in “Bob Talbert’s quotebag” in the Detroit Free Press, already credited to Martin Mull, and Mull confirmed authorship through his art dealer in 2010. Quote Investigator’s verdict ↗ is careful and this page follows it exactly: “Martin Mull is the leading candidate for crafter of this maxim.”

Context

Why this one refuses to stay attached to anybody

The line is a punchline about a real problem: music is the one art that cannot be paraphrased. A poem or a painting represents something you can describe in ordinary words; a chord progression does not. That complaint is old. The New Republic printed a version of it on 9 February 1918 — “Strictly considered, writing about music is as illogical as singing about economics” — and Winthrop Parkhurst sharpened it into a simile in The Freeman on 5 October 1921 and again in The Musical Quarterly in July 1930, per Quote Investigator ↗.

What changed in 1979 was the imagery. Somebody swapped “singing about economics” for “dancing about architecture,” and the joke became unforgettable — two absurd physical acts instead of one. Because the line reads as something a witty musician would say, it has been redistributed to whichever witty musician the speaker happens to admire: Costello, Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, Steve Martin, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, George Carlin, even Clara Schumann. Costello, who genuinely did say it once, has spent decades being paid a compliment he keeps trying to return.

Oh, God! Can I please put in print that I didn’t say that!

The template, and the twist in Mull’s own book

Quote Investigator points out that what really propagates is not a sentence but a template: Writing about music is like ____ about ____, or Talking about music is like ____ about ____. Filled-in variants documented on that page include David Coverdale of Whitesnake (“singing about football,” October 1980), Mike Oldfield (the same, April 1982), John Lennon in his last Playboy interview, and Philip Howard in The Times in August 1991 stacking two at once: “Writing about art is like dancing about architecture or knitting about music.”

There is one honest complication in Mull’s case. In his 1995 book Martin Mull: Paintings, Drawings, and Words, Mull used the line himself — but told it as something he had heard, a story about a painting instructor who told a class that “talking about art is like dancing about architecture.” Quote Investigator notes this may mean he did not originate it, or may simply be a rhetorical distancing device. In 2010 he answered the question the other way: blogger Mike Johnston asked Mull’s art dealer, Carl P. Hammer of the Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, to put the question to him, and reported that “Martin confirmed that he is indeed the originator of the famous one-liner.” QI records that this reached print through a chain of three people and says a more direct statement would be desirable. That is why this page says leading candidate and not author.

Explore

Filed under

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: full citation trail, 1918–2008quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor research. Every dated attestation from the 1918 New Republic precursor through the 1979 Detroit Free Press first close match to Costello's 2008 denial, with archival citations.
Wikipedia: Writing about music is like dancing about architectureen.wikipedia.org

An article devoted to the phrase itself, covering the 1918 precursor, the 1979 Mull attribution and the long list of people it has been pinned on.
Wikiquote: Elvis Costello — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

Files the line under Misattributed on Costello's page, recording that he denied coining it and pointed to Martin Mull.
Wikiquote: Martin Mull — Attributeden.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under Attributed on Mull's page, citing the September–October 1979 Time Barrier Express article by Gary Sperrazza.
Wikipedia: Martin Mullen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the leading candidate, with his 1943–2024 dates and a note that Costello and Gary Sperrazza both credited the remark to him.
The New Republic, 9 February 1918 (Vol. 14, Iss. 171)archive.org

The digitized issue that Quote Investigator cites for the earliest precursor, 'writing about music is as illogical as singing about economics' (p. 63).

The leading candidate

Who was Martin Mull?

Martin Mull

1943–2024 · American comedian, musician, actor and painter

Martin Mull (born 18 August 1943 in Chicago; died 27 June 2024) was an American comedian, singer-songwriter, actor and painter who built a career out of deadpan absurdity — the mock soap Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, the fake talk show Fernwood 2 Night, Colonel Mustard in Clue, and decades of television work through Roseanne, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Arrested Development. He was also a serious visual artist, showing paintings that mixed photorealism, pop and collage. The line fits him exactly: a comedian-musician who spent his life in both music and pictures was the ideal person to notice that criticism is a translation between incompatible media — and the earliest print citation anyone has found already had his name on it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Chicago

“Bob Talbert’s Quotebag,” Detroit Free Press (Detroit, MI), 18 February 1979, 19C, col. 5 — the first close match documented in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture,” 8 November 2010, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/. Elvis Costello’s use: Timothy White, “Elvis Costello: A Man Out of Time Beats the Clock,” Musician, no. 60 (October 1983): 52.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/writing-about-music-is-like-dancing-about-architecture/

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