I’m breaking the rules today by not featuring a second song from Elvis Costello’s North. I couldn’t find any more of its tracks on YouTube and I’m not about to throw good money after bad and download one.
Instead I’m going back a few years before the release of North to highlight a performance in a similar vein that I find far more effective. Costello recorded this cover of the Charles Aznavour song ‘She’ for the soundtrack to 1999’s Notting Hill. The song played over the opening and end credits of that Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant romantic comedy, adding a nice romantic sheen.
I wrote about North being a bad fit for Costello, and you might conclude that a florid romantic ballad in a Julia Roberts flick would be a bad fit as well. And on the surface, it probably is. But Costello’s voice and the lavish production blend beautifully, making this one of the rare cases of Costello pulling off an unapologetic love song. Perhaps it’s significant that he didn’t write it himself.
May be the face I can’t forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay
She
May be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day
She
May be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
The smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell
She
Who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one’s allowed to see them when they cry
She
May be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I’ll remember till the day I die
She
May be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I’m alive
The one I’ll care for through the rough in ready years
Me
I’ll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I’ve got to be
The meaning of my life is
She
She, oh she
Meet Me In Montauk 
Funny I hadn’t even thought of this song until I opened up your blog today, then I remembered just how much I loved it and how very effective I found it at the time. In fact, I think it classed up that otherwise fine little romantic comedy considerably.
Not sure why it should matter that it is a cover rather than an original, as i think Costello could write a song in this vein (when do you do his Cold Mountain song? That’s one I also adore). Regardless, I agree that this song disproves your theory from yesterday, so perhaps you don’t have to doom his adorable twin boys from having to shuttle between their mother’s house during the week and their father’s house during the weekend, in order for Costello to write an album you’ll enjoy 😛
I just love this song and the footage from Gone With The Wind.
I reject the notion that EC can’t write a good love song. In fact, I would argue that “Alison” is an example of a great love song, even though it may not be a straightforward traditional one.
And, as I said yesterday, I think “Still” is a lovely song as well.