‘We were being watched by the KGB’: how Scorpions made Wind of Change
‘A guy from our record company told me to take out the whistling,I said no way,When the song went through the roof, he came to me, bent over and said, “Kick my ass!”’Being a West German band made playing the Soviet Union in the late 1980s particularly special,We’d grown up in a divided country and had tried many times to play in East Germany, but they would never let us in,When we did our first gig in what was then Leningrad, the atmosphere was a bit grey, not very colourful or rock’n’roll – but hearts started opening up over the course of the 10 gigs we did in the city.
It ended up a bit like Beatlemania, with fans circling our cars after every show.In Leningrad, we realised we were being watched by the KGB.But when we played the Moscow Music Peace festival the following year, the soldiers in the stadium turned to face the bands, joined in the cheering and became part of the audience.It was like the world was changing in front of our eyes.Suddenly, with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin – and perestroika and glasnost – it was possible for this Russian Woodstock to happen.
It was hard to believe that people had been sent to prison for listening to western rock music – because now there was a Russian audience going nuts to Rock You Like a Hurricane.In September, after I came home, I started fiddling around with my little keyboard.Wind of Change was not some kind of fantasy: it was one of those songs that comes from deep in your soul and you just try to express what you’ve lived through.The lyric refers to Moscow’s landmarks because when we played the festival there, all the bands went for a boat ride on the Moskva, all the way to Gorky Park.The whistling was a result of me having no guitar when I was writing it.
The record company in the US later called me and said: “You have to take the whistle out.” I said: “No way.” When the song went through the roof, the same guy came to me, bending over and saying: “Klaus, I was wrong.Please forgive me – you can kick my ass!”Matthias Jabs did a wonderful kind of Hendrix guitar intro, while Rudolf Schenker played a fantastic guitar solo – and it all just came together.But not one of us thought about the political side of Wind of Change.
Nobody had a master plan.For me, it was just a reflection of what we saw, this change in the air.It’s a song of hope for a peaceful future, perfect for that historical moment.When Patrick Radden Keefe – a very serious journalist from the New Yorker – confronted me with the theory that the CIA wrote Wind of Change to bring the cold war to an end, I had to laugh.Not in your wildest dreams would you think of something like that.
But in the end, his podcast was a huge promotion for the song.A line in Wind of Change says: “We could be so close, like brothers.” That was exactly the way we felt at the Moscow Music Peace festival.Now, 35 years later, it’s like the clock is ticking backwards.It’s very sad.
In Leningrad, we were playing to over 10,000 people each night,By the time of the Moscow Music Peace festival, we were big in Russia,But MTV wanted Bon Jovi to headline,The fans went crazy while we played – then Bon Jovi came on and they all left the stadium,We saw Jon Bon Jovi do an interview later that night and he said: “I’ll never play after the Scorpions again!”We could already feel the world drastically changing.
And after we came back from Moscow, Klaus called me and said: “I have a song.” Normally, Klaus didn’t write music, just lyrics.But he played me Wind of Change and I told him: “It’s great, but there’s one thing missing – a chorus.” He came back with the full song when we went to Vancouver to record the Crazy World album.I worked hard on the guitar solo, because I’d realised the song’s potential.
I’m not the best guitarist – normally I’m the rhythm player.So I remember sitting with my headphones on, tracking take after take, trying to put down a solo that would lift up the lyrics for a powerful finale.Wind of Change was released in January 1991, and I said to Klaus: “You know what? We also have to record a version in Russian.” Pirate radio was born at that time in Russia, and at six every morning, they’d start by playing that song.It became the soundtrack to the most peaceful revolution on Earth.
Now, we have a whole different world.In 2022, Klaus said, “I can’t sing Wind of Change the way it was” – and he changed the lyrics he sings live to ones that support Ukraine.The new Scorpions compilation, From the First Sting, is out on 26 September via BMG
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