Moskau (Dschinghis Khan song)

"Moskau " (German for Moscow) is a single by the German pop-act Dschinghis Khan from their 1979 self-titled debut album.

History

The song was released in Australia in 1980, the year of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.^[1] Australia's Channel 7 used the song as the theme to their television coverage of the Moscow Olympics.^[2] The song became a big hit in Australia, staying at #1 for six weeks.

The song also appears on their 1980 album Rom. The album version clocks six minutes, but the single version is four and a half minutes long.^[3]

The song also achieved an enormous underground popularity in the Soviet Union. A 15 second clip of the song's performance was shown as a part of the New Year holiday lineup on the state-run TV, leading to the immediate dismissal of the network's director.^[4]

In 2006, the song made its video game debut as a playable song in Taiko no Tatsujin Portable 2 after having been popularized in Japan by a viral misheard lyric video with 2ch characters.[1]

It was also played at the opening at Eurovision 2009 at Moscow, Russia.

Covers

• The song has also been covered by German black metal band Black Messiah^[5] and the Leningrad Cowboys.
• A Finnish version was recorded by Frederik.
• This song was also cover-versioned by Hong Kong pop singer George Lam as "Olympics in Moscow" (Chinese:世運在莫斯科).
• In China a version with altered lyrics called Fen Dou^[6] (奋斗) was made by Da Zhangwei (大张伟).
• Georgie Dann made a Spanish version in 1980^[7]
• The chorus of the HammerFall song "At the End of the Rainbow" (originally written by Martin Albrecht and Andy Mück of Stormwitch) from the album Legacy of Kings seems partly inspired by the chorus of "Moskau".
• The song also inspired the pop song "Ding Dong Song" by Swedish singer Günther.
• In 2010, American Power Metal/Thrash Metal band The Last Alliance recorded a cover of the song in two versions, one being sung in German and the other one in English.
• John Carpenter covered the tune for his movie The Fog.
• The "Barrel Roll Song"^[8] uses samples from Star Fox 64 and is also inspired by the song.
• In live performances of their song "Sacrament of Wilderness," the symphonic metal band Nightwish plays a riff from Moskau at about the three-minute mark of the song.^[9]

References