Universal Music Enterprises Presents Elvis Costello's Music 'In Motion Pictures'

For DarNell Martin's 2001 "hip-hop opera" Prison Song, Costello took not one, but two unlikely supporting roles, as both a school teacher and a public defender in addition to providing the track "Oh Well," co-written with Q-Tip.

However, the most unlikely piece of casting against type came not on-screen but when Richard Curtis offered to "ruin his career" by employing Costello as an unambiguous romantic balladeer over the closing titles of Notting Hill.

His rendition of "She," the Charles Aznavour/Herbert Kretzmer song, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios while luminescent images of Julia Roberts were projected onto a giant screen hung above the orchestra. The song reached a modest No. 19 in the U.K. but was, however, a hit around the world, from Brazil to the Philippines, and remains Costello's calling card in a number of countries in which exposure to the rest of his catalogue triggers everything from bemusement to outrage.

It's with all this I say, thank goodness that we now have In Motion Pictures to recall those occasions when Elvis Costello's peculiar talents were in accord with the flickering shadows, galloping tintypes and lingering dreams of those imaginings.

TRACK LISTING
1. Accidents Will Happen 
2. Lover's Walk 
3. Miracle Man
4. Life Shrinks
5. Crawling To The U.S.A. 
6. Seven Day Weekend (featuring Jimmy Cliff & Elvis Costello
7. Days 
8. I Want You 
9. You Stole My Bell 
10. My Mood Swings
11. Oh Well
12. God Give Me Strength
13. Sparkling Day
14. She
15. A Town Called Big Nothing (featuring The MacManus Gang)

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