scorpion
Photo: Frank Eyssen. All rights reserved.
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Released 32 years ago and uploaded to YouTube 13 years ago, the Scorpions’ single “Wind Of Change” has now had more than 1 billion views and currently has 4.6 million likes. Fan comments like “1991: Wonderful Song! 2019: Wonderful Song! 3049: Wonderful song!” adorn the comment column.
The melody of political change
The power ballad appeared on “Crazy World”, the 11th album by the Hanoverians. It became synonymous with the fall of the Berlin Wall, especially in 1989. The video also shows some footage of the fall. However, the group’s lead singer, Klaus Meine, had actually written about the experience of playing alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Cinderella and Skid Row at the Moscow Music Peace Festival in August 1989 in front of 300,000 fans at Lenin Stadium.
The four musicians appeared as one of the first Western bands in the Soviet Union, gave ten concerts in Leningrad in 1988 – and in 1989 at the Moscow Music Peace Festival, known as the “Woodstock of the USSR“ is applicable.
Lyrics changed after 30 years: Song should not support Russia
In the summer of 2022, Meine decided to change the lyrics: The Scorpions singer is clearly opposed to Putin. “Since the release of the new album (“Rock Believer”) in February we rehearsed a new live show. We had a concert in Las Vegas and I was like, ‘This is not the time to romanticize Russia with lines like ‘Follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park.’”
“I wanted to make it clear that we support Ukraine in this difficult situation,” Meine said in an interview with the Ukrainian TV station TCH. The war, said the 75-year-old, would affect the band very deeply. Live performances of “Wind of Change” are now aimed directly at Ukraine.
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