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A quarter century ago, Sting and Elvis Costello were the leading rivals for the hearts of new wave fans. Today, they're rivals for the votes of
that older demographic known as Academy members (the motion picture academy, not the recording one). Both rockers have tunes from the movie "Cold Mountain" nominated for a Best Song Oscar, but unlike the battling factions in that Civil War drama,they're setting aside past differences and making like allies.
Costello even participated in an all-star tribute to Sting at the annual MusiCares benefit on the Sony Pictures studio lot in L.A. on Feb. 9, serenading the honoree with a ukelele-backed version of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic." This, despite some jabs that a less mellow Elvis had taken at Sting in the past, playfully or otherwise. Apparently, the movie's beating-swords-into-plowshares message really rubs off.
Says Sting, "I'm especially happy that two songs got nominated from the movie - Elvis's song, too, which is great." Costello also expresses
admiration for Sting's contribution, and surprise at the nomination for his own: "It would have seemed to be almost a little greedy (to expect) both songs to be acknowledged." Indeed, Miramax seemed to be prepared for the possibility that the two numbers (Sting's "You Will Be My Ain True Love" and the Costello/T Bone Burnett collaboration "The Scarlet Tide," both sung by Allison Krauss on the soundtrack) would cancel each other out in the voting. The studio initially took out trade ads touting both, but after only Sting's picked up a Golden Globe nomination, subsequent "for your consideration" Oscar ads left out mention of the other. Academy members found both anyway.
Also nominated in this unusually eclectic category were songs from "Lord of the Rings" (cowritten and sung by Annie Lennox), "A Mighty Wind"
(cowritten by Michael McKean), and "The Triplets of Bellevue." (Left out, surprisingly, were several picks from the Globes' all-rock-star lineup, including themes from the likes of Bono, Phil Collins, and Eddie Vedder.) "It's not just a B.S. thing" I'm really proud to be in this company," says Costello. "I know Annie. [They dueted on an old Eurythmics record.] I know Sting a little bit, to say hello to - to tease. And I know Mike McKean, and I'm really, really delighted their song from "Mighty Wind" is in there, because that's a hell of a song, particularly as it works as an [independent] song with a great melody and also works in the comedic context of that film." Sting is enjoying the company, too..
"It is an odd assortment, but I'm very happy with all those other people," he says.
"Annie's a friend of mine. And I'm a huge fan of Spinal Tap [McKean played David St. Hubbens], so there's no problem with that for me," he
laughs.
But is Elvis' relationship with Sting only a "teasing" one? In the past, he's taken some potshots at the former Policeman - first, by name, in
an old song (1991's "Hurry Down Doomsday"), then on episodic television (a gag on "The Larry Sanders Show"), and, more recently, in comments to the press after they both were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. So some fans were a bit surprised by Costello's seeming eagerness to sign up for the MusiCares salute. What gives?
"He asked!" says Costello. "He wanted me to be there. Now he's playing another game, I think. I think it was a test of my Catholic soul," he
laughs. "Or his, I'm not sure which. Listen, I've got no problem with him.
He's a good musician. Not all of his work is to my taste, any more than I'm sure mine is to him. But you know, somebody asked me straight out at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, "Were they [the Police] any good?" I said "No, they were bloody dreadful." And of course he's bound to get a little riled by that. But I was speaking what I perceived as the truth, and he might have had his opinion of my performance. But you know, there are so many people in the world that deserve your disdain and contempt, and almost none of them are musicians. In fact, none of
them are.
"People make jokes about John Tesh as being like an evil force in the world, but it's overstating something, isn't it?" says Costello. "Whereas
there are actually people that are killing other humans. They're the people that we have to hate. There aren't any musicians that I hate. I never went with the Pol Pot approach to punk-rock. The Year Zero idea of music, actually, that was a contemptuous idea. All those people who read all those French philosophers, Malcolm [McLaren, who created the Sex Pistols] and all those people, I always thought that side of punk was a bit suspect. I never went with the idea that we're wiping away the past or that this person is the corporate devil and this person is the real artist. They're real if they mean something to you, and that's all that matters, isn't it?"
Sting's "Ain True Love" pops up as a motif throughout "Cold Mountain." "When he comes out of the battle, she [Krauss] is singing the melody as a piece of soundtrack, and I was very proud of that," he says. "I thought, that's how I want to be involved as a songwriter in movies, not as someone stuck on the end as a marketing tool, which drives me nuts."
A song with "ain" in the title probably isn't Top 40-bound - "and why the hell not?" Sting demands with a laugh - but don't let the language baffle you. He pleaded with director Anthony Minghella to have a shot at writing a song for the movie, "and he said "Okay, if you can come up with a song that fits the idiom of the movie, both lyrically and musically, then you're on."
So I went away, and I'd seen the movie three times, and what I know about the history of the South is that a lot of people were of Irish/ Scottish/English descent," he says. "And so to write a sort of archaic folk song as if it had been written maybe in a slightly earlier period was my brief. That's what I did, with lots of "ye's" and "thee's" and muskets and cutlasses and stuff that seemed arcane and kind of timeless in a way."
Sting's composition is very melodic, but also has a chant-like quality. You might say that it's um (hmmm) "It's modal," Sting says, helping us out, with a laugh. "You can use that."
Costello's "Scarlet Tide," cowritten by soundtrack producer Burnett, came about as a request from the filmmakers, but only after he'd recorded
some of the same sorts of 19th century standards that the White Stripes' Jack White sings in the movie - all of which ended up on the cutting room floor. "I'd actually cut a couple of traditional pieces for possible inclusion, because obviously they were trying all sorts of different things to try and establish this texture of music," says Costello. "Eventually they came on and said, would we write a song with a much more specific brief?" - to summarize the film's theme, which he sees as being: "Men mess up the world and women put it back together again." He and Burnett sat down at a piano in a hotel lobby and banged out the haunting ballad. "Because of the fact that Ada's character [Nicole Kidman] plays the piano, I said, because of that, do you think we can have that just slight bit more sophistication of it being a piano, because so much of the other music had been [period Appalachian] string instrument music?"
Having Krauss doing the singing also makes a difference after all those hillbilly voices and cat-gut banging. "I knew that I was writing it for
a woman's voice, because of the lyrical content," says Sting. "But it was T Bone who enlisted Allison, who he'd worked with on "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" When I heard the result, I was just thrilled. If anybody was going to call you back from hell, it would be that voice."
Still unresolved is how the song nominees will be performed (or excerpted) at the Feb. 29 ceremony, and whether Krauss (who just won five more Grammys at that telecast) will sing both numbers or get a little help. Says Sting, "I'll do some backup singing [as he does on the soundtrack recording]. I'll try to keep myself down," he laughs. He does allow "I could sing a verse. We'll see what the Oscars want, you know. They're always pressed for time on that show. I think they're gonna try to get us [all the nominees] to sing together at some point, which would be interesting."
Costello definitely doesn't want to sing lead on the telecast, even though he's been performing "Scarlet Tide" in his own concerts and on talk
shows. "I don't think anybody's gonna get sick of hearing her voice," he says. "But somebody did call up yesterday and said would we join the band. If we can play a credible part in the arrangement, then that wouldn't be a bad thing.
I guess it would be a nice little support to her; with a singer who hasn't got a dance routine, it could look a bit lonely out there on that big stage. Having played the Kodak, I know you could have a lot of dancing girls on that stage."
Costello even has an idea for how to turn his "Cold Mountain" contribution into a quasi-production number: "Maybe I could have my leg strapped up my back, with a crutch and an eyepatch and an old tattered (Civil War) uniform, and play the fife in the background."
Debbie Allen, check your messages
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