Music of the end of an empire: 30 years of Wind of change from Scorpions
Surprisingly, everything coincided. However, why be surprised? Life is the best playwright. Almost simultaneously A monument to Gorbachev was erected in Germany and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the legendary recording “Wind of Change” performed by the rock band Scorpions. By the way, these German musicians, led by Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker, are especially loved in Russia, and indeed throughout the entire post-Soviet space. I myself, needless to say, am one of the Scorpio fans. Yes, yes, to “Still loving you” I danced my first slow dance at school, and to “Big city nights”... okay, I’ll keep quiet.
But, perhaps, the main love of Soviet and Russian fans is connected precisely with the composition “Wind of change”. It appeared in 1990 and, in fact, became the soundtrack to the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Perestroika” had already entered its final destructive phase - and the country was about to commit suicide.
Meanwhile, the sweet-voiced Meine sang, in general, banal things. Well, for example, about the balalaika and Gorky Park. By the way, the group with exactly this name helped to promote the “scorpios” already in the West. And those – in the sense of “Gorky Park” – were pushing the “cranberry” image with might and main: “Cossacks”, trousers, Lenin, guitars in the shape of a balalaika. Yes, it was a completely “popular” and at the same time crazy time, when Soviet people, like Papuans, were bought for beads (read – for rock paraphernalia).
Of course, the songs were wonderful. We still listen to them - we shouldn’t include Morgenstern. However, now, 30 years later, after robbery, poverty and hard times, all this rock splendor sounds and looks a little different. After all, you understand that behind the excellent music there were completely ideological things hidden. And it’s not so much about the musicians, but about those who blatantly used them.
After all, when I say “Wind of change” - immediately automatically humming and remembering the clip in which “scorpios” are walking around Moscow - then another important event automatically pops up in my memory - the Moscow Music Peace Festival. Yes, the same legendary festival where Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions and others performed on stage. Actually, it was the trip to this event that prompted the Scorpios to write “Wind of Change”.
Don’t be lazy – review the recordings from that festival. Especially the Mötley Crüe and Ozzy performances. You will see a demonstrative crowd: almost insane people - made in the USSR - who were shaking American flags, and girls, similar to the Blok heroine who sang in the church choir, suddenly turned into furies and threw not only caps, but also underwear into the air.
Yes, it seemed to these people that they were celebrating freedom with rock anthems, but in reality they were welcoming slavery. After all, these same electrified girls later became prostitutes, and others... it’s scary to say what happened to others. Because freedom, indeed, as Uzziah would say, resembled a crazy train - only it was rushing into the abyss. And almost all immigrants from the USSR sat on it.
Then there were “Monsters of Rock”, where AC/DC, Metallica and the completely uncompromising Pantera performed. There, the faces showed not just the agony of freedom, but the faces of the horsemen of the apocalypse. The big dream lost to the small, vulgar, bourgeois dream - the one about eating, hanging out and sleeping with someone. It was to these songs at these festivals that people exchanged something beautiful for something cool, but too ordinary. And it was then that we saw that people are just people crawling on the ground, and not rushing into space.
And then - after a couple of years - everything became clear. And the “wind of change” turned into a “garbage wind,” into a hurricane of destruction, when rock albums could be bought freely, but there was nothing to eat. This was the soundtrack of the end - not of an empire, no, but of the end of the Big Dream.
After all, it seemed to someone that a revelation was coming from the speakers, a message from above, but there they just sang about how a boy wants to hold a girl’s hand. Everything is very simple. Deadly simple. Oh, those crafty Beatles.
It's a pity that we realized this too late. And the music is really great.
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