The cold war was a scary time.
Between World War 2 and the 1990 people wondered whether the world’s two biggest superpowers
America and the Soviet Union would ever have a direct conflict that would lead to nuclear
war.
By the late 80’s, the end of the soviet union was near.
While ballads + big hair bands seemed to be a winning formula during this time, the Scorpions
have the proud distinction of having their ballad Wind of Change become synonymous with
the fall of communism.
The video directed by wayne isham which was set to the backdrop of the berlin wall falling
only further solidified this image.
In actuality, the song’s origins pre-dated the berlin wall, had nothing to do with Germany
and some people believe the song was written by the CIA to build up pro-democractic movements
in the soviet union.
Let’s explore the history of the song in today’s video.
GIven the contents of the song, you could be forgiven for thinking that The German band
the scorpions were from Berlin.
In reality, they were actually from hannover, which is 200 miles to the west.
That’s not ot say their childhood wasn’t anxiety ridden with Klaus Meine (Mine-ah)
telling rolling stone We always said we were lucky we grew up in West Germany.
It’s hard to believe today, but there were only three channels on German television and
one of them came in black and white from East Germany.
And when you saw the East German television, it was just like a dark world.
It was very confrontational for people in the West.
It was like you could feel we were not very welcome over there, really.
That divide between the East and West was very tense.
We grew up with jeans, with Elvis, with bubblegum.
Very much Americanized.
But over there, they grew up with the Soviet Union.
They grew up with Nikita Khrushchev, who banged his shoes on the table at the United Nations.
That was like a threat, you know?
When Khrushchev hit the table, it was, “Wow, the next war is just around the corner…”
Wind of Change is not written about Germany or the berlin wall, but rather the Moscow
music Peace Festival which took place in August of 1989.
On the bill at the show were of course the scorpions who played alongside bon jovi skid
row, motley crue as well as ozzy.
Local bands including Gorky Park were also on the bill.
The festival would be broadcast on MTV and it would be the first time in history that
hard rock and hair metal acts would play Russia.
Coincidentally a few months later in November of 1989 the berlin wall fell and it was around
this time the band wrote and recorded teh song WInd of Change.
The song would appear on the group’s 11th album Crazy world, which would be released
in november of 1990.
The song would become synonymous with the fall of the iron curtain.
The Moscow Music Peace Festival would not be the first time the Scorpions played Russia
as they had previously played a handful of shows in Leningrad in 1988 after being denied
the opportunity to play Moscow the same year.
Guitarist Rudolph Schenker would tell Rolling Stone the authorities, they were afraid that
when rock & roll comes into their country, especially to Moscow — because there are
many different nationalities from the eastern part of Europe living there, as well as Russians
— they thought maybe a riot could happen.
So they didn’t allow us to play in Moscow, but offered to let us to play more shows in
Leningrad.
By the time The Scorpions played the moscow music peace festival they were pretty well
known in the soviet union and unlike the other acts they saw a big change in the country
over the span of one year with Klaus Meine telling Rolling Stone There were so many emotional
moments in Moscow.
I guess it could have been Bon Jovi or Mötley Crüe, any of these guys who had gone home
inspired by what they saw, but for them it was like, “Hey!
We rocked the Soviet Union, dudes!”
For us maybe it was different.
We saw so many changes from Leningrad in ’88 to Moscow in ’89.
That was the inspiration for “Wind of Change.”
In the same interview Meine would recall how during one of the band’s days in Moscow
would serve as the inspiration for the first line of Wind of Change saying : We took the
boat down the Moskva River.
And we were on this boat with all the bands, with MTV journalists, with Red Army soldiers…
It was an inspiring moment for me [the first lines in “Wind of Change” are: “I follow
the Moskva/Down to Gorky Park”].
It was like the whole world was in that one boat talking the same language: music.
Director Wayne Isham who was also at the peace festival recalled to rolling stone how a lot
of the acts on the bill had huge egos, but the scorpions didn’t and they were simply
there to rock.
It was during the Scorpions set that the Red Army soldiers turned to face the stage and
throw their caps and jackets in the air.
The Scorpions who grew up in the shadows of the soviet union could sense that the cold
war would be over soon.
By the band’s second day in Moscow Winds of Change had been written.
While Meine would mostly write lyrics, he would present the complete song to the band.
Initially when Meine presented the song to the band he didn’t it full flushed out as
he whistled his way through the song, something his bandmates were unsure about same with
the record label.
But once they took the whistling out they felt that the song didn’t feel right and
kept the whistling in.
Released in November of 1990 Crazy World would go on to sell 7 million copies worldwide.
Wind of Change would be the third single released from the album with Schenker telling Rolling
Stone how the song’s success was unexpected revealing @It was actually the French people
who put out “Wind of Change” as a single first.
They always liked the slow songs very much.
“Still Loving You” [from 1984’s Love At First Sting], we say that was the song
of the French baby boom — people were making love to it and making babies to it.
So “Wind of Change” became very popular there.
And from that came the kind of revolution of this song, from one country to the other.
In the next few months, the song was Number One everywhere.
The Wall had come down in Germany and this song became the soundtrack of the most peaceful
revolution on earth.
In 2020 a new podcast was launched that looked into a rumor that the song was not written
by the scorpions, but by the CIA.
It would be a writer for the New Yorker named Patrick Radden Keefe along with Spotify, Pineapple
Street Studios, and Crooked Media who put together an eight part podcast that featured
interviews with the Scorpions themselves, historians and ex-members of the CIA to dive
deep into the history of the song.
The podcast also explores the histyr of the US government and American culture’s infiltration
on the Soviet Union starting in the 70’s and in Africa s well.
Keefe had written extensively on US National Security Agency or NSA in his 2005 book Chatter.
Keefe would claim that one of his sources claimed that the CIA was behind the song.
He would tell the guardian The CIA saw rock music as a cultural weapon in the cold war.
Wind of Change was released a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and became this anthem
for the end of communism and reunification of Germany.
It had this soft-power message that the intelligence service wanted to promote.”
The podcast also dealt with America’s intelligence agencies long history of working with people
in show business.
So what do teh Scorpions have to say about the claim? of course it's not true at all,"
he added.
"It shows how powerful music can be.
If they think this song was like a tool to help to bring down communism — I mean, Jeez.
[Laughs] It just underlines, in a heavy way, if that would be possible, the power of music.
"We live in times where conspiracy theories are all over the place, in many directions,"
Klaus said.
"And a lot of people start to believe what they see, what they hear or what they think
what is the truth and what is for real, and in many cases, it's not.
It's also a lot of people, they don't wanna go with the mainstream.
It's, like, 'You know what?
I know the USA was never on the moon.
It was all fake.'
There are many people who believe that theory…
It's the kind of people, they wanna give you the feeling, 'You believe that?
I know better.'"