Out of the 'Cold'

Image credit: Sting: Eamonn McCabe/Camera Press/Retna

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Elvis Costello

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Sting's ''Ain True Love'' pops up as a motif throughout ''Cold Mountain.'' ''When [Jude Law] 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 asks 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.''

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 establish this texture of music,'' says Costello. ''Eventually they came on and said, would we write a song with a much more specific brief?'' 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 asked, would we join the band [at the ceremony]? 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!