Did the CIA write Scorpions’ chart-topping power ballad ‘Wind Of Change’? This is the central inquiry of the eight-part podcast series Wind of Change, hosted by New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe.
Scorpions’ 1991 single ‘Wind of Change’ is one of the best-selling songs of all time. Part of the song’s appeal is how aptly it captures a moment. The song arrived just 12 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and fewer than 12 months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Klaus Meine’s lyrics directly correspond with these historical events.
The opening lines, “I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park / Listening to the wind of change,” describe a scene in the Russian capital. Scorpions hail from Hannover in West Germany and were one of the few Western bands to perform behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. But even so, Meine’s lyrics are scarily prescient. “The future’s in the air / I can feel it everywhere / Blowing with the wind of change,” he sings in the second verse.
Radden Keefe’s examination of links between the CIA and ‘Wind of Change’ are based on more than a hunch, however. A close friend had dinner with an ex-CIA spy, who straight-up told him the CIA wrote ‘Wind of Change’. Radden Keefe initially found this claim ridiculous. You might too. But as he digs deeper, retrieving more information about the CIA’s covert operations, it begins to seem more and more plausible.
Wind of Change is a gripping journey. Radden Keefe occasionally deviates from the central inquiry to look at the agency’s history of co-opting popular culture for propaganda purposes. He points out how Louis Armstrong, at the height of his popularity, was sent to the Congo by the US government. The idea was to expose the recently liberated Congolese to the values of America, lest they get lured in by Communism.
He also reveals that Nina Simone once visited Nigeria for a tour put on by the American Society of African Culture (AMSAC). Simone died in 2003 and never discovered AMSAC was set-up by the CIA. He also draws attention to Argo, the fake film devised by the CIA to free American hostages in Iran.
The series comes to a head when Radden Keefe meets up with Meine in Hannover and asks him if the CIA wrote his biggest single. Seriously – you gotta tune in.
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Check out ‘Wind of Change’ by Scorpions
