[ad_1]
Winds of change
Can Rock N ‘Roll change the world?
Did the song Winds of change Why did the Scorpions gang cause the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991?
That’s the conjecture from the podcast of the same name, Winds of change, a new eight-part research podcast that premiered on May 11 as a co-production by Crooked Media, Pineapple Street Media, and Spotify.
The genesis of the story is that Scorpions played as part of a crowded lineup at the historic Moscow Peace Festival at Lenin Stadium in August 1989 and soon after lead singer. Klaus Meine was inspired to write the song Winds of change on changing the political climate in Eastern Europe.
The fervor for the song grew immediately, and became a worldwide success and the unofficial anthem of the fall of the Berlin Wall with its hooks and riffs of powerful ballads and lyrics over the Moskva River and Gorky Park.
In case you are too young to remember the song, it is preserved here in all its glory.
On the podcast Winds of change, New Yorker writer and multi-book winner Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the results of a 10-year investigation as a result of a claim by his friend that the song was written by the CIA and given to Scorpions to spur on the fall of the Soviet Union.
The press release and the audio preview Today we reveal that it is more than a strange story of American propaganda, but a history of American propaganda in pop music. Throughout the series, we are promised “exclusive interviews with former CIA officers, legends of the music industry, and reports on the ground in four countries.”
Furthermore, the series, we are told, “is based both on little-known stories of government collaboration with legendary jazz artists Nina Simone and Louis Armstrong, and on conversations with current and former spies.”
I don’t know how these seemingly disparate elements combine, but history tells us that our American government has always been very interested in popular music.
Billy Holiday, for example, was allegedly framed by Harry Anslinger, first commissioner of the Federal Narcotics Office for refusing to stop playing Strange fruit, a song about lynching a black man. The false heroin charges took her to prison for 18 months.
The fall of the Soviet Union was truly a triumphant moment in world history, and the idea of world peace seemed closer than ever. It would not be out of place to discover that the United States government had something to do with it.
We will all know more on May 11 when Winds of change premieres.
