Wind of Change (Scorpions song)

"Wind of Change"
Single by Scorpions
from the album Crazy World
B-side	"Tease Me Please Me"
Released	20 January 1991
Format	7" CDM CD
Recorded	1990 Wisseloord Studios (Hilversum, Netherlands) Goodnight LA Studios (Los Angeles, California)
Genre	Hard rock
Length	5:10
Label	Vertigo Mercury
Songwriter(s)	Klaus Meine
Producer(s)	Keith Olsen Scorpions
Scorpions singles chronology
"Don't Believe Her" (1990) "Wind of Change" (1991) "Send Me an Angel" (1991)
"Don't Believe Her" (1990) "Wind of Change" (1991) "Send Me an Angel" (1991)

"Wind of Change" is a power ballad by the German rock band Scorpions, recorded for their eleventh studio album, Crazy World (1990). The song was composed and written by the band's lead singer Klaus Meine and produced by Keith Olsen and the band. It was released as the album's third single in January 1991 and became a worldwide hit, just after the failed coup that would eventually lead to the collapse of the Soviet Communist regime. The song topped the charts in Germany and across Europe and peaked at number four in the United States on August 31, 1991 and number two in the United Kingdom. It later appeared on the band's 1995 live album Live Bites, their 2000 album with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Moment of Glory, and on their 2001 unplugged album Acoustica. With estimated sales of 14 million copies sold worldwide, "Wind of Change" is one of the best-selling singles of all time.^[1] It holds the record for the best-selling single by a German artist.

The band presented a gold record of the single to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. As of July 2017 the video for "Wind of Change" has been viewed more than 430 million times on YouTube. The Scorpions were the first German band to receive over 100 million views.

Background and writing

The lyrics celebrate glasnost in the USSR, the end of the Cold War, and speaks 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.^[2]

The Scorpions were inspired to write the song on a visit to Moscow in 1989,^[2] and the opening lines refer to the city's landmarks:

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change

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 stringed instrument somewhat like a guitar. The balalaika is mentioned in the following verse:

The wind of change blows straight
into the face of time,
Like a stormwind that will ring
the freedom bell for peace of mind.
Let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say

Composition

"Wind of Change" opens with a clean guitar intro played by Matthias Jabs, which is played alongside Klaus Meine's famous flat whistle. The song's guitar solo is played by Rudolf Schenker.

Other versions

The band also recorded a Russian-language version of the song, under the title "Ветер перемен" ("Veter Peremen")^{[3] [4] [5]} and a Spanish version called "Vientos de Cambio".

Legacy

In 2005, viewers of the German television network ZDF chose this song as the song of the century. It is the best-selling song ever in Germany, reportedly selling over 6 million copies in that country alone, and is frequently played on television shows presenting video footage of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Germany, it is remembered as the song of German reunification and a message of hope.^[6]

Uses of the song

• plays in a scene from the 2010 movie Gentlemen Broncos, when main character Benjamin Purvis walks out of a bookshop with his date.
• popular UK football show Soccer AM uses "Wind of Change" as its tribute to UK troops overseas.
• features in the video game SingStar Rocks! and has been added as a downloadable content from the SingStore.
• featured in the episode "Chuck Versus the Seduction Impossible" of the TV show Chuck.
• in series 15, episode 2 of Top Gear, the song can be heard during the introduction of The Stig's "German cousin".
• in the independent film In Search of a Midnight Kiss (distributed by IFC in summer 2008), writer/director Alex Holdridge has characters in the film sing an impromptu version of "Wind of Change" as the movie concludes in celebration of the main character's changing fortune, and as the credits start to roll. Austin, Texas-based rock band Sybil performs a cover of the song.
• was used in the Berlin Wall trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) in the "First Strike" DLC.
• Hong Kong pop singer Alan Tam included a Cantonese version of the song called "再等幾天" (English: "Wait a few More Days") in his 1992 album Lover.
• plays at the end of the 2014 film The Interview.
• played on the church bells of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, Netherlands as part of the project 'Recording Heaven' by the artists Roos Blogg and Maia Lyon Daw in 2009.^[7]
• played during the warm-up sessions of A State Of Trance Festival 2003.
• David Lemieux used it as his entrance song in his boxing match to Gennady Golovkin on pay per view at Madison Square Garden October 17, 2015.
• played at the end of a sketch about the social disintegration of the suburb of 'Cowsick' in the TV series Brass Eye.
• regular bumper music on Coast to Coast AM

Track listings

Charts and sales

Chart successions

See also

• Glasnost
• Perestroika
• Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)

References

External links

• Lyrics and guitar chords
• "Wind of Change" music video on YouTube