Scorpions. Wind of change score.
Wind of Change is a song by the West German rock band Scorpions, recorded for their eleventh studio album, Crazy World (1990)…[and in this recording Nikolay whistles over it]. The power ballad was composed and written by the band’s lead singer Klaus Meine following the band’s visit to the Soviet Union at the height of perestroika. With estimated sales of 14 million copies sold worldwide, Wind of Change is one of the best-selling singles of all time…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.
The song is the subject of the podcast Wind of Change, released 11 May 2020, which raises questions regarding the song’s origin. Patrick Radden Keefe, the New Yorker author 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.” In December 2020, Deadline reported that the podcast will be adapted into a television series for Hulu directed by Alex Karpovsky.
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 Ukraine, 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.” (source: Wikipedia)
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