Video (and lyrics): Elvis Costello performs Radio Radio on SNL after a false start on Less Than Zero

This is the famous "false start" clip of Elvis Costello & The Attractions on Saturday Night live (circa 1977). He had cleared the song Less Than Zero with the show, but a few seconds in, decided he didn't like it, and the band stopped and launched into his great song Radio Radio.

There is an oft-repeated story that producer Lorne Michaels was so angry about the switch in tunes that he stood off camera in the wings and gave Elvis a double middle finger throughout the performance.

Radio Radio is an eloquent and vitriolic statement about radio, and no doubt one reason it upset the suits on the show is that much of what Elvis sings/writes about radio applies to their medium as well. . .




Radio Radio
by Elvis Costello a/k/a Declan McManus

I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
doing anything my radio advised
with every one of those late night stations
playing songs bringing tears to me eyes
I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
when the switch broke 'cause it's old
They're saying things that I can hardly believe.
They really think we're getting out of control.

Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation
They say you better listen to the voice of reason
But they don't give you any choice
'cause they think that it's treason.
So you had better do as you are told.
You better listen to the radio.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly.
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.

Some of my friends sit around every evening
and they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
and the promise of an early bed
You either shut up or get cut out;
they don't wanna hear about it.
It's only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel

[Chorus]

Wonderful radio
Marvelous radio
Wonderful radio
Radio, radio...
---o0o---