The Top 20 Elvis Costello Songs of All Time

7. “Less Than Zero”

“Less Than Zero” was the first single ever released by Elvis Costello, and pretty quickly it established him as a songwriter of major import. The song details the imagined tawdriness of an aging fascist, so people quickly understood that Costello was gutsy. And clever.

The easy way to do the song would have been simply to dress down Oswald Mosley, the fascist in question whose unapologetic appearance on the BBC inspired Elvis’ ire, for his past misdeeds and bigoted worldview. Yet Elvis chose to take on his target in a far more novel way: By equating Mosley’s fascist leanings with the inclinations of a miscreant who would commit shameless acts of sexual depravity with family members and minors. In that way, Costello expressed his opinions on the heinous nature of Mosley’s beliefs better than any point-by-point argument ever could.

It helped, of course, that “Less Than Zero” was so catchy. All jagged edges and herky-jerky rhythm, the song shows that Costello already possessed a firm grasp of tension-and-release song mechanics, the way verses should pull back just a little bit and save the intensity for the chorus. With that kind of foundation in place, ably constructed by the My Aim Is True band, just about any lyrical content can sound like a hit.

By the end of the song, Mosley’s imagined indiscretions have made the leap from sodomy to murder, yet he still is able to walk around unpunished: “Mr. Oswald said he had an understanding with the law.” And why is this possible? Because of the protagonists ability to whitewash any sins or crimes with some eloquent double talk: “Let’s talk about the future now we’ve put the past away.”

In the chorus, Costello sings, “They think that I’ve got no respect/But everything means less than zero.” You can read that as him putting words into the mouth of Mosley one more time in the song, or you can read it as Elvis’ own disgust with the situation. In other words, why should he show respect when such travesties are allowed to be foisted upon the public? Regardless of whether or not he intended it to be heard that way, the line did serve as a good summation for the abandon with which Costello would protest injustice and ignorance throughout his career, even when it meant rattling powerful cages and ruffling well-coiffed feathers.

Elvis trivia hounds know that “Less Than Zero” is the song that he started and then stopped during his infamous 1977 Saturday Night Live appearance before tearing into “Radio, Radio.” His logic was that he felt the meaning of “Less Than Zero” would be lost on American audiences who wouldn’t know the history and might even confuse the “Oswald” in the song for Lee Harvey Oswald (Costello would perform live versions of “Less Than Zero” with altered lyrics in the U.S. for this reason.)

While I understand his reasoning, my take on it is that most people, even those Americans who might have made the wrong connection or didn’t know the story behind the song, still would have gotten it. They would have absorbed the passion and conviction of the lyrics, even if the specifics eluded them. They would have felt the impact of “Less Than Zero.” Most importantly, they would have known the fearlessness of its composer. And that would have been enough.