Editing Elvis Costello (section)

=== 1977 ''Saturday Night Live'' appearance ===

On 17 December 1977, Costello and the Attractions appeared on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' as last-minute replacements for the [[Sex Pistols]].<ref name="Houghton Mifflin Harcourt"/>{{Sfn|Thomson|2004|p=108-109}} One of the songs Costello was scheduled to perform, at the request of his record company, was "[[Less than Zero (Elvis Costello song)|Less Than Zero]]", a song Costello wrote in reaction to seeing British fascist [[Oswald Mosley]] being treated with what Costello felt was undeserved deference during an interview on British television.{{Sfn|Thomson|2004|p=108-109}}<ref name="Marcus1982" /> Costello did not want to play the song because he thought the subject was too obscure for American audiences and the song was too low-key to make a strong impression.<ref name="Costello-2001" />{{Sfn|Costello|2015|p=307}} Instead, he wanted to play the then-unrecorded song, "Radio Radio". During the live broadcast, Costello played a few bars of "Less Than Zero" and then told the Attractions to play "Radio Radio", which they played in its entirety.{{Sfn|Thomson|2004|p=109}} This angered the show's producer, [[Lorne Michaels]], because Michaels was not prepared for the change and because "Radio Radio" had not been cleared by [[NBC]]'s censors.<ref name="Guccione">{{Cite magazine|last=Guccione|first=Bob Jr|date=February 1993|title=Lorne Michaels [interview]|magazine=Spin}}</ref><ref name="Untreed Reads">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rkUn4S_OlngC|title=Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live|last1=Hill|first1=Doug|last2=Weingrad|first2=Jeff|publisher=Untreed Reads|year=2011|isbn=978-1-61187-218-7|chapter=15: You Can't give Noogies to the Virgin Mary|orig-date=1986}}</ref>{{efn|Many sources assert without evidence that Lorne Michaels or others associated with ''Saturday Night Live'', rather than Costello's record company, had told Costello not to play "Radio Radio", or that the supposedly anti-corporate nature of the song's lyrics was the reason he was told not to play it, or both. This is not supported by Costello's account, nor by Micheals' account, nor the accounts of others directly involved with the show.{{Sfn|Costello|2015|p=307}}<ref name="Guccione"/><ref name="Untreed Reads"/>}} When asked about the incident on NBC's ''[[The Tomorrow Show|Tomorrow Show]]'' three years later, Costello said he was told he would never appear on American television again.<ref name="Tomorrow Show-2006">{{Cite AV media|title=The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder – Punk & New Wave|type=DVD|language=English|year=2006|at=Interview with Costello, air date 3 February 1981}}</ref> He appeared as musical guest on ''Saturday Night Live'' again in 1989 and 1991.<ref name="Houghton Mifflin Harcourt"/> Although the incident provoked little comment at the time, by 1999 it had become so well known that ''Saturday Night Live'' invited Costello to perform a parody of it with the [[Beastie Boys]] on the show's 25th anniversary special.{{Sfn|Costello|2015|p=|pp=307–308}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://consequenceofsound.net/2010/03/youtube-live-elvis-costello-plots-to-sabotage-beastie-boys-on-snl/|title=Video Rewind: Elvis Costello plots to "Sabotage" Beastie Boys on SNL|last=Coplan|first=Chris|date=5 March 2010|website=Consequence of Sound|access-date=4 August 2018}}</ref>