Scorpions - Wind Of Change With Lyrics

[Leysan Torri]

Wind of Change" is a song by West German rock band Scorpions, recorded for their eleventh studio album Crazy World (1990). A power ballad,[4] it was composed and written by the band's lead singer, Klaus Meine, and produced by Keith Olsen and the band. The lyrics were composed by Meine following the band's visit to the Soviet Union at the height of perestroika, when the enmity between the communist and capitalist blocs subsided concurrently with the promulgation of large-scale socioeconomic reforms in the Soviet Union.

With estimated sales of 14 million copies sold worldwide, "Wind of Change" is one of the best-selling singles of all time.[6] It holds the record for the best-selling single by a German artist. The band presented a gold record and $70,000 of royalties from the single to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, with Soviet news sources claiming the money would be allocated to children's hospitals.[7]

Klaus Meine said in an interview that the time 1988/1989 in the Soviet Union was characterized by the mood that the Cold War was coming to an end, the music was the unifying factor for the people.[8] The memories of this time are also transported in the music video for the song.[9] Meine was inspired by his participation in the Moscow Music Peace Festival on 13 August 1989, at Lenin Stadium, where the Scorpions performed in front of about 300,000 fans:[4][10]

Die Idee dazu ist mir in der U.d.S.S.R. gekommen, als ich in einer Sommernacht im Gorki Park Center sa und auf die Moskwa geblickt habe. Das Lied ist meine persnliche Aufarbeitung dessen, was in den letzten Jahren in der Welt passiert ist.

The idea came to me in the U.S.S.R. when I was sitting in the Gorky Park Center one summer night, looking at the Moskva River. The song is my personal reappraisal of what has happened in the world in recent years.

Meine referred to the music center in Gorky Park, founded by Stas Namin from the eponymous rock band Gorky Park.[11] The lyrics celebrate glasnost in the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and speak of hope at a time when tense conditions had arisen due to the fall of Communist-run governments among Eastern Bloc nations beginning in 1989.[4] The opening lines refer to the city of Moscow's landmarks:

The Moskva is the name of the river that runs through Moscow (both the city and the river are named identically in Russian), and Gorky Park is an urban park in Moscow named after the writer Maxim Gorky. The song also contains a reference to the balalaika, which is a Russian triangular stringed instrument somewhat like a guitar. The balalaika is mentioned in the following lines:

"Wind of Change" opens with a clean guitar introduction played by Matthias Jabs, which is played alongside Klaus Meine's flat whistle.[13] The song's guitar solo is played by Rudolf Schenker.[citation needed]

The song is the subject of the Pineapple Street Studios podcast Wind of Change, released 11 May 2020, which raises questions regarding the song's origin.[14][15][16] Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker and host of the podcast investigates the allegation that the song was written by or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, citing a rumor originating allegedly from inside the agency. In a Sirius XM interview with Eddie Trunk on 13 May 2020, Meine stated "It's a fascinating idea, and it's an entertaining idea, but it's not true at all".[17][18] In December 2020, it was reported that a further investigation of the song's origins based on the claims from the podcast will be adapted into a series for Hulu directed by Alex Karpovsky.[19]

As of 2022, the Scorpions still perform the song live but with lyrical changes in light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The opening lines are changed to "Now listen to my heart / It says Ukrainia, waiting for the wind to change." Meine stated, "It's not the time with this terrible war in Ukraine raging on, it's not the time to romanticize Russia."[23]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they collaborated with Japanese rock star Yoshiki to perform "Wind of Change" for the documentary film Yoshiki: Under the Sky.[25] This was the first time the band came together to perform the Ukraine version of the song.[26] The performance was later released as a music video on YouTube.[27]

As of 2024, the Scorpions have changed the opening lyrics again to adopt a more neutral tone, displaying these on the video screens at gigs: "Now listen to my heart, it still believes in love, waiting for the wind to change. A dark and lonely night, our dreams will never die, waiting for the wind to change."[28]

This song means a lot to me too, I'm from West Berlin. I was 19 when the Brandenburg Gate was opened in November 1989 and we all ran through the cordon of soldiers and stepped on East German soil for the first time in our lives. Our whole lives before that had been lived under the spectre of nuclear war. The start of the 1990s with the reunification of our country, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Wall, the freeing of the Warsaw Pact countries, was so full of hope and possibilities. I remember thinking that this was the year my life REALLY began. I still cry when I hear this song.

jeez, this is the song that has kept me from killin myself, i dunno why, theres sum thing about it, it makes me feel like i am not alone when i really am, incredible song, cmmon people gimme sum opinions

This song is about everything that was happening in the world then. everything from the end of WWII,through the cold war, the spring of 1968 revolutions, the USSR war in Afghanistan, the Kosovo and Bosnia conflicts, the fall of communism, and the fall of the berlin wall, and the US on the brink of war in the gulf war. the world had gone through hell for almost 50 years, and it seemed like it may finally be over, and the song is about listening to the winds of change, and hoping that they are a good one. sadly, we know now that more wars, and massacre was to follow.

Hey Simonlee ... I think you're a little confused there buddy(unless you're being facetious on purpose). In the context of the song, I'm pretty sure the moskva is not a nazi night club, its simply a transliteration of the russian word Moscow, and is the name of a large river which runs through the former Soviet capital. Gorky Park, again, is a famous landmark in Moscow, as it is the main amusement park for the city, and is situated along the Moskva river. The Scorpions simply wish to portray the changing of times surrounding the fall of the Iron Curtain, as one meandering down by the Moskva towards Groky Park would be able to hear the sounds of people and amusement-park activities going on; the "wind of change" spreading the newfound feelings of freedom to those who previously may not have been able to enjoy the simple pleasures of playing games or riding a ferris wheel.

What a great song...what's sad is that friends of mine who are freshmen in college have never heard this song, or if they have, are clueless as to what it means. I was young when the Berlin Wall came down, but I remember it vaguely...I have more of an association of it coming down to this song than to memory. What a great song...:)

I may not have been around for the fall of the berlin wall (i was born in late '85) but i'm at a turning point in my life, leaving home for college in a year. So this song really means a lot to me, maybe in a different way than it does to some of you guys, but it's still amazing.

SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine has once again opened up about his decision to alter some of the words in the band's anti-war anthem "Wind Of Change" order to appropriately reflect what's going on in Europe.

"We were just preparing a new tour," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "Since the release of the [new SCORPIONS] album ['Rock Believer'] in February, we were preparing a new show, a new set. We were booked for a residency in Las Vegas. I thought this is not the time to romanticize Russia with lyrics like, 'Follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park.' And I wanted to make a statement that we support the Ukraine in this very difficult situation.

"When I wrote ['Wind Of Change'], it was about the time when the SCORPIONS went for the first time to the Soviet Union back in '88 when we played 10 shows in Leningrad," he continued. "After all those years living in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, living with the Iron Curtain, to see how we have the chance with music to build bridges and really come together. So it was so very inspired by this moment of hope, hoping for a more peaceful world and just joining together into a peaceful future. And so that was the expression. And so many years later now, I think the song has lost the meaning of being a peace anthem, being a song of hope. But I had to change those lyrics, like I said."

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