"Wind of Change" - The Scorpions, 1989 (rock)

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change

Walking down the street
Distant memories
Are buried in the past forever
I folow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change

The wind of change
Blows straight into the face of time
Like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of mind
Let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say

The Meine brothers, whom you and I know as a couple of serious guitar shredders who hail from Germany (aka The Scorpions), began writing this song in 1989 after a visit to Moscow. They were actually the first hard rock band ever to play in Russia. They returned the following year to play the Moscow Music Peace Festival. It was then that the words to this song were written. They were inspired by the site of thousands of Russians cheering them on, even though they were German. Lead singer Klaus Meine is quoted as saying, "Everyone was there: the Red Army, journalists, musicians from Germany, from America, from Russia - the whole world on one boat. It was like a vision; everyone was talking the same language. It was a very positive vibe. That night was the basic inspiration for Wind Of Change."

It was the same year this song was written that the world changed forever. Modern history will record that in late summer of 1989, Communist Europe ceased to be. "Wind of Change" rose to be the unofficial theme song of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, late in the summer of 1989.

The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 and separated two German states for 28 years. West Berlin was free. East Berlin was not. The Wall was over 96 miles long and was actually two walls back to back. In 1975, the final modifications to The Wall were added, constructed from 45,000 sections of reinforced concrete each 12 feet high and 4 feet thick. It had 116 watchtowers, 20 bunkers, barbed wire, canine patrols, fakir beds (beds of nails under balconies) and anti-vehicle trenches that guarded a "no man's land"...the death strip area in between the two walls. It was paved with raked gravel, which made it easy to spot foot prints.

When the border between East and West Berlin was officially closed at midnight on August 13, 1961. East Berlin was controlled by Josef Stalin and became a socialist state. Families were abruptly separated. People who commuted to work from East to West were instantly either homeless or without employment. At least 136 people are confirmed killed trying to escape from East to West Berlin (but there were probably many, many more "unconfirmed"), and countless documented and undocumented desperate successful and failed escape attempts.

Ironically, the collectiveness The Scorpions (and everyone else) experienced at the Moscow Music Peace Festival would not end when the Music Peace Festival ended. "Wind of Change" celebrated the political shift in Eastern Europe. Although "Winds of Change" wasn't written specifically about the Berlin Wall, the feelings of the world and the lyrics of the Meines was somewhat of poetic foreshadowing. The Berlin Wall was an icon of the rule of tyranny and poverty behind the Iron Curtain, and it was one of the largest, most real, tangible, material objects that smacked the face of humanity and said that the Cold War was real...and it was so much more than simple politics. When the Berlin Wall came down, it signalled the beginning of total collapse of the Iron Curtain in Europe, which would trickle all the way up to the very hub of communism: Mother Russia. The Cold War, which had gripped the world and glued us to the edge of our seats for five decades, was finally over.

In 2005, viewers of the German television network ZDF chose "Wind of Change" as song of the century. It is the highest ever selling song in Germany, and is frequently played with footage of the Wall coming down. This song is also widely known in Germany as the song of German reunification (and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, generally), even though it only rose to popularity two years after.

A key to some of the lyrics:

Moskva - the name of a river that runs through Moscow

Gorky Park - an amusement park in Moscow

balalaika - a musical instrument of Russian origin that is fretted and has three strings and looks an awful lot like a Gibson Flying V guitar.

"Wind of Change" - The Scorpions, 1989

(gathered freely from east to west and various places in between)

"Fur Elise" - Ludwig van Beethoven, 1810 (heroic classical)

Ludwig Van! Come on down!

This is one of THE most famous classical pieces of all time. Anyone who has ever taken piano lessons can at least play the beginning. I'd even venture to say that if you know nothing else by Beethoven, you know this one. And true to the Beethoven asthetic, no piece of music was written "just because". When he wrote a piece, it served a purpose.

Beethoven's life of music is generally divided into three periods: Early, Middle, and Late. More specifically, these periods are known as the Classical, Herioc, and Romantic periods. It is the Herioc period which concerns us today.

Beethoven's Herioc Period began during a time of personal crisis. This middle period spanned the years between 1803 and 1814; he was in his twenties. It was at this time Beethoven recognized his encroaching deafness. He suffered from severe tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which made it very difficult for him to appreciate his art. He also began to avoid conversations with people. During this time, he frequently contemplated suicide. His hearing loss also made him iracible and it is alleged that he also suffered from bipolar disorder. Nevertheless, he resolved not to end his own life but to suffer for his art. It was this suffering that marks his Herioc Period. During this time is when he wrote most of his large-scale works - works that express heroism and struggle - most of which are quite famous today.

It was also during this time that "Fur Elise" was composed, dated April 27, 1810. However, the piece wasn't published until 1865 - 38 years after Beethoven's death. While there is no hard, documented evidence, "Fur Elise" is generally accepted by the musical community to be a mistranscription of an illegible, handwritten title that appeared on the piece when it was discovered. It is believed the true title of the piece is "Fur Therese".

"Therese" was one of Beethoven's love interests, Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza, who was one of his students. Beethoven did not have successful romantic relationships because his tastes steered him towards women who were either already married or who belonged to the aristocracy. Beethoven had planned to marry Therese in 1810. However, she declined his proposal in 1816. Therese was the daughter of wealthy Viennese merchant Jacob Malfatti von Rohrenbach. Knowing Beethoven's knack for choosing women who were out of his league, it should not surprise us that she instead married the Austrian nobleman and state official, Wilhelm von Droßdik.

The song is written in a minor key, which means that it sounds agitated, dark, sad, ominous, and just not happy, but the song is really a love song. During the Beethoven era, the word "Elise" was also used to describe one's sweetheart, so today we may also loosely apply the piece's title to our sweethearts in general, with no specific person in mind. MUAHHHH!

...and since this blog LOVES all things pop culture, what a more fitting way to present this piece than a la Richard Clayderman's most excellent, bogus rendition:

"Fur Elise" - Richard Clayderman

(gathered from hither and yond, near and far, with a few sprinklings of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure")

"Enola Gay" - O.M.D., 1980 (synthpop)

Enola Gay, you should have stayed at home yesterday
Aha words can't describe the feeling and the way you lied

These games you play, they're gonna end in more than tears someday
Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way

It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been
We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home

Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today
Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away

Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way
Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't fade in our dreams away

It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been
We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home

Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today
Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away

True to the spirit of the 80's, O.M.D.'s (Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark) 1980 hit "Enola Gay" is a bright, catchy, poppy tune...with some incredibly dark and sinister lyrics. But that's all part of the idea, sometimes, isn't it - to get an otherwise hush-hush topic on the lips of thousands of people by making it cute or catchy? Sardonic gallows humor at its best. The song soared to No. 8 on the UK charts.

The Enola Gay was an aircraft - the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan in WWII on August 6, 1945. Enola Gay, in the song, is "mother" - impregnated with a "Little Boy" bomb that would go down in infamy.

Little Boy was the codename of that nuclear bomb, which was deployed over the city at 8:15 am that morning. It was dropped three days prior to the "Fat Man" bomb was used on Nagasaki. It exploded with a destructive power equivalent to 13-16 kilotons of TNT and killed approximately 140,000 unsuspecting civilians. Death was immediate and occurred either by blast, fire, or radiation. The death toll of this explosion is technically unknown because any people within the blast area were instantly cremated. The figures of those deaths are estimates gathered from area population information.

The first effect of a nuclear explosion is blinding light and then radiant heat from the fireball. Little Boy's fireball was 1,200 feet across. This intense fire melted glass and any water-based organisms (aka living things) were vaporized instantly. The blaze was even enough to vaporize one anonymous subject yet leave his shadow permanently etched on the stone steps of a bank building. But the bomb's fire isn't alone. This blaze would ignite secondary fires with electrical shorts and combustible and flammable materials.

Little Boy's blast, the fireball, was a result of x-ray heated air and sent shock and pressure waves travelling through the air at the speed of sound, which is the same as hearing a thunder roll. The blast levelled an area two miles in diameter from the detonation site, even turning buildings into kindling and rubble in a matter of seconds.

There were survivors, however to survive a nuclear explosion is only to die in the following fallout - the air particulate in the detonation zone and surrounding - contaminated with radioactive fission particles. The fallout area, sadly, is much larger than the blast and fire areas. They are easily spread by wind, rise up to the stratosphere, dissipate, and actually become part of the global environment forever. Thousands died in subsequent years due to the radioactive contamination of the area. Millions more suffered physical defects and serious illnesses as a result of the fallout.

The dropping of Little Boy by Enola Gay was a huge mistake, and as the song suggests, the Enola Gay should have stayed home that day.

"Enola Gay" - O.M.D., 1980

(compiled from various sources)