Lyrics Depot is your source of lyrics to Less Than Zero by Elvis Costello. Please check back for more Elvis Costello lyrics.

Less Than Zero Lyrics

Artist: Elvis Costello
Album: My Aim Is True

Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo
There is a vacancy waiting in the English voodoo
Carving "V" for "vandal" on the guilty boy's head
When he's had enough of that, maybe you'll take him to bed
To teach him he's alive before he wishes he was dead

(CHORUS) Turn up the TV, no one listening will suspect
Even your mother won't detect it, so your father won't know
They think that I've got no respect but
Everything is less than zero
Hey, oo hey-ey
Hey, oo hey-ey

Oswald and his sister are doing it again
They've got the finest home movies that you have ever seen
They've got a thousand variations, every service with a smile
They're gonna take a little break and they'll be back after a while
Well, I hear that South America is coming into style

(REPEAT CHORUS)

A pistol was still smoking, a man lay on the floor
Mr. Oswald said he had an understanding with the law
He said he heard about a couple living in the USA
He said they traded in their baby for a Chevrolet
Let's talk about the future, now we've put the past away

(REPEAT CHORUS)
Hey, oo hey-ey
Hey, oo hey-ey
(REPEAT AND FADE)

Comments/Interpretations

by her on 7/7/2008 1:15pm
Love elvis costello. his music is like nothing Ive heard before. momofuku was a great album as well.

by Jim Coats on 11/21/2009 7:38am
Great song nailing the rise in rightwing politics in late late 70's Britain by ridiculing the blackshirt fascist leader Oswald Mosley from the 30's. There's a US version based on Lee Harvey Oswald too!

by Meka on 11/29/2009 3:50pm
Hey Jim Coats can you elaborate even more? I've always wondered what he was talking about.

by big shot on 12/3/2009 12:59pm
Just Discovered Elvis Costello this year (it is safe to say 2009 was one of the worst years of my life). He was one of the few silver linings in the cloud. Love this song

by Jim Coats on 4/7/2012 6:30pm
Oswald Mosley was behind the Blackshirts UK fascist movement in th 30's and was married to one of the famous literary Mitford sisters. By all accounts a charismatic speaker, his Blackshirt marches caused much controversy in England, but thankfully unlike Hitler and Mussolini, he never gained anything made significant headway and was sidelined on the margins. Americans assumed Oswald was Lee Harvey of JFK fame so Costello resourcefully knocked up a different set of lyrics for US consideration.