Did the CIA help write the Scorpions song ‘Wind of Change’?
As the Soviet Union was approaching its final days, an anthem had been taken up around the world, precipitating its downfall. German hard rock giants the Scorpions had seen the reunification of their country at the end of 1990 and saw the end of the Cold War about to break in Russia as well. The progression reminded singer Klaus Meine of a visit that the band made to perform in the Soviet Union and the feelings of hope that were created there.
In 1989, the Scorpions were one of the headliners of the Moscow Music Peace Festival along with Mötley Crüe and Ozzy Osbourne. The festival was organised to ease tensions between the West and East while doubling as a fundraiser for drug and alcohol programs. The show culminated in the “Gorsky Park Jam” featuring Russian, American, and British musicians playing together. Meine felt that the moment had to be captured in a song.
“The idea came to me in the USSR when I was sitting in the Gorky Park Center one summer night, looking at the Moskva River,” Meine told Classic Rock in 2014. “The song is my personal reappraisal of what has happened in the world in recent years.”
When it was first released as a single in 1991, ‘Wind of Change’ quickly became an anthem for the collapse of communism in the USSR. The song sold more than ten million copies, making it one of the most successful singles of all time. ‘Wind of Change’ was a top five hit in the US and UK, but throughout Europe, it was a chart-topper. The association between the fall of communism and ‘Wind of Change’ has continued, although the Scorpions currently play a version of the song that downplays the ionization of Russia and instead highlights the Ukraine resistance.
But in 2020, a new wrinkle emerged in the story of ‘Wind of Change’. Through the podcast Wind of Change, named after the song, The New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe presented a theory that the CIA wrote and promoted ‘Wind of Change’ as a means to expedite the fall of the USSR. The US government had a proven track record of promoting pro-democracy songs in the final years of the Soviet Union’s existence, including Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Chimes of Freedom’.
Keefe’s investigation ultimately came out inconclusive. While he emerged confident that the rumour of the CIA writing the song had started within the agency itself, and plenty of suspicious activity seemed to surround the potential validity of the rumour, Keefe was unable to confirm that anyone within the CIA actually wrote ‘Wind of Change’.
For his part, Meine reiterated in a 2020 interview with Eddie Trunk that he was the sole writer of ‘Wind of Change’. He confirmed that Keefe had interviewed him but wound up laughing off the idea that the song was a CIA creation. “I thought it was very amusing and I just cracked up laughing,” Meine explained. “It’s a very entertaining and really crazy story but like I said, it’s not true at all. Like you American guys would say, it’s fake news.”
Check out ‘Wind of Change’ down below.
