It’s not really all that long before we get to mark the 50th anniversary of the debut single by Elvis Costello.
11 March 1977. It came out on Stiff Records. It would also be included on his debut album, My Aim Is True, which hit the shops in July 1977.
mp3: Elvis Costello – Less Than Zero
It really is a remarkable debut from an era when there were so many fantastic debuts from bands and singers who were part of the new wave. It’s a quietly effective but hard hitting political protest song written after Declan McManus (as he was known at the time) got more and more angry sitting at home and watching a TV interview during which Oswald Mosley, the 1930s leader of the British Union of Fascists increasingly denied his racist past. The interview was particularly insulting as England, in the mid 70s, was going through another phase in history where right-wing zealots were seeking to gain a foothold via the National Front.
It was, unsurprisingly, not a chart hit, failing to pick up the sort of radio play that was rather essential back then. It certainly wasn’t officially banned by the BBC, but I’d be surprised if it was ever played by anyone other than John Peel.
I hadn’t realised until a few years ago that Costello had rewritten the lyrics for an American audience once he learned that many of them thought the Mr Oswald referred to was the man who shot John F Kennedy. From his 2015 autobiography:-
“I’m not sure if anyone in Cleveland had ever heard of Oswald Mosley or gave a damn about him when we played ‘Less Than Zero’ that night. It was just some rock and roll music with a fashionable-sounding title”.
Before too long, he was singing the alternative lyric (known as the Dallas version) during his North American shows, as can be heard from this March 1978 rendition at the El Mocambo in Toronto:-
mp3: Elvis Costello – Less Than Zero (live)
Here’s the b-side of the Stiff single
mp3: Elvis Costello – Radio Sweetheart
This wasn’t included on My Aim Is True, but having established itself as a bit of a fans’ favourite, it would make its way onto a number of compilations and the later expanded repressing of the debut.
Oh, and big thanks to Jonny the Friendly Lawyer who last year gifted me a copy of the original single and from which today’s mp3s have been lovingly sourced.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
As Ground Zero goes less than zero is a cracking debut single from a singly unique artist. Costello is someone I grow warmer to as the years pass.