WDEL is holding an open house today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and I’ll be on the air with Rick Jensen at 11 a.m. You better do as you were told: You better listen to the radio.
This was the song that got Elvis Costello banned from “Saturday Night Live.” On orders from his record company, he was supposed to play “Less Than Zero,” but Costello objected because of both the song’s slow tempo and its subject: British fascist Oswald Moseley, unknown then and now to most Americans. So after a few bars of “Less Than Zero,” played at a faster pace than the record, Costello famously stopped the band and launched into “Radio, Radio,” a pointed critique of the commercialization of broadcast media. SNL producer Lorne Michaels was so angry he stood to the side of the stage and flipped Costello the bird for the duration of the song, and Costello was banned from the show until 1989.
Eventually all was forgiven, possibly because the incident continued to resonate throughout rock culture. Weird Al Yankovic, who uses computerized backup in live concerts, would break into “Radio, Radio” any time the server crashed during a song. It so well-known that Costello reprised the stunt on the show’s 25th anniversary broadcast, breaking into a song by the Beastie Boys to play “Radio, Radio” with the Beasties backing him.
