This is largely the reverse of a covers album, with songs that the prolific Englishman originally wrote or cowrote for other artists. You can often sense each track’s initial aim—the chiming guitars of “You Bowed Down” (Roger McGuinn); a soul-stirring ballad “What Can’t a Man Stand Alone?” (Sam Moore); the aching self-examination of “The Other End of the Telescope” (Aimee Mann)—but Costello inhabits them completely. That’s especially true of the title track, which distills the sound of loss into a haunting melody.