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MPR News Staff

Elvis Costello customized 'Less Than Zero' lyrics for American listeners

Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello at the Brooklyn Bowl, Sept. 16, 2013.
Laura Fedele | WFUV 2013

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Today's Morning Edition music is from Elvis Costello and "Less Than Zero."

Costello says that he wrote the song "after seeing the despicable Oswald Mosley being interviewed on BBC television. The former leader of the British Union of Fascists seemed unrepentant about his poisonous actions of the 1930s."

When he performed the song in the United States, Costello sometimes changed the lyrics so that the song would be about Lee Harvey Oswald; he assumed Americans had never heard of Oswald Mosely.