It seems that the United States has its own notorious "Mr. On his first visit to the States, Costello realized that American audiences weren't responding to the song.
After seeing Mosley on television downplaying his fascist leanings, Costello penned the song as a "slandering fantasy" of the British politician. Oswald in question is Oswald Mosley, a former leader of the British Union of Fascists. To teach him he's alive 'fore he wishes he was dead When he's had enough of that, maybe you'll take him to bed There is a vacancy waiting in the English voodooĬarving 'V' for vandal on the guilty boy's head In "Less Than Zero," Costello sings: Calling Mister Oswald with the swastika tattoo With one breezy pop song, Costello told anyone listening that he wasn't about to be controlled, but why did that make Lorne Michaels so angry? It also helped Costello get banned from SNL for the next decade. The song, a trenchant critique of the commercialization of music and the way that record labels turn their artists into employees, made Costello a star to punks, art school kids, and just about everybody who thumbs their nose at authority. In the now-infamous clip, Costello and his band The Attractions play the opening notes to "Less Than Zero" - but then he stops them, apologizes to the studio audience, and the group launches into "Radio, Radio." He didn't just opt to play a different song - he made a show of changing his mind live on stage in studio 8H. Rather than playing "Less Than Zero," the mellow single from his debut album My Aim Is True, he opted for something new, something that rocked - and that rankled Lorne Michaels. When Elvis Costello played "Radio, Radio" on Saturday Night Live in 1977, he cemented his status as an angry young man.
0 kommentar(er)
