On listening to “The Scarlet Tide” (by T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello) from Cold Mountain: a movie song and its afterlife

Abstract

This article examines how the emerging concept of affective space can be applied to movie soundtracks, with particular reference to “The Scarlet Tide” written by T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello for the film Cold Mountain (dir. Anthony Minghella 2003) and the implications this has for the place of religion in film culture. The article explores how affective space works with the experience of individual listeners and the wider social context. Both affective expressions can shape how this track is received and integrated into a process of meaning making. The article concludes with an assessment of some implications that this discussion has for understanding the social nature of music, religion, and spirituality.

Keywords:

• Religion
• affective space
• distributed self
• meaning making
• social imaginary
• spirituality

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented to a joint session of the “Religion, Film and Visual Culture Group” and the “Music and Religion Group” at the American Academy of Religion; this version was entitled “Hearing Images: Film Music, Meaning-Making, and Lived Religion”. I am grateful to all who have commented on this piece, including the panel members and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Notes

1. See http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=4383 (accessed 1 September 2015) for this and following notes. Costello has continued to extemporise with this part of the song, for example, in a concert in 2009, he can be seen re-working the lyrics to reflect on the financial crisis of 2008 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsD9kX0uog0, accessed 8 September 2015).

2. For further discussion of ‘religion-like’ in this context, see Marsh and Roberts 2015a.