The Scorpions’ hit “Wind of Change” is inextricably linked to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the struggle for freedom in the Soviet Union. But Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine has changed the omens. Now the rockers have even rewritten their song.
Actually, the Scorpions should have been in rock retirement for a long time. Their official farewell tour started in 2010 – and somehow never stopped. Comeback followed comeback. Her next tour of Germany begins on Wednesday. A turning point again. And this time not in a good way. The band has always managed to convey a sense of departure. Her song “Wind of Change” became the anthem of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union. But before their upcoming “Rock Believer” tour, the signs have changed. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, the intimate relationship between the Scorpions and Russia has been strained. So burdened that singer Klaus Meine even felt compelled to rewrite their biggest hit.
“Not the time to romanticize Russia”: Scorpions rewrite “Wind of Change”.
As reported by “Zeit”, the Hanoverians played their first concerts after the corona pandemic in Las Vegas in March. At that time the war was already raging in Ukraine. It wasn’t an option for Meine to just keep playing her biggest hit: “I just couldn’t imagine singing Wind of Change the way we’ve always sung it,” says Meine. “It’s just not right, it’s not the time to romanticize Russia.”
Even if the song was written in a completely different time and under completely different circumstances, the first lines sound almost sarcastic today: “I follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park / Listening to the wind of change.”
With regard to the Russian attack, there were only two possibilities: the band could no longer play their biggest hit, or the lyrics would have to be adjusted. The Scorpions chose the latter. Since their concerts in Las Vegas, the text has been: “Now listen to my heart – It says Ukraine, waiting for the wind to change”, reports “Rolling Stone”.
So fans of the band can look forward to the new lyrics on the tour, which Meine will also sing at future performances. “And that will also be the case in the near future.”
Meine laughs at the rumor that the CIA wrote “Wind of Change”
And then there’s the utterly unbelievable rumor: Patrick Radden Keefe, author of the “New Yorker”, started broadcasting his podcast “Wind of Change” almost two years ago. In the course of this, he pursued the theory that it was not the Scorpions, but the American secret service, the CIA, who wrote the ballad.
When Keefe confronted Meine with this rumor, he was perplexed at first, then laughed in disbelief at the absurd theory and made it clear: the CIA didn’t write the song.
Sources: Die Zeit, Rolling Stone
