Tag Archives: CIA

Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Winds Of Change

A music festival in Moscow that features Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Scorpions, Ozzy, Skid Row and few other acts.

Then came the Scorpions, “Wind Of Change” and its lyrics about being like brothers and following the Moskva River to Gorky Park.

Plus it’s the only song on the album written by Klaus Meine.

Where the Scorpions influenced or paid or instructed by the CIA to write this song?

Because we all know, the US and the USSR tried to outdo each other with their nuclear arsenal. When that failed, the US via the CIA tried to do what the USSR did in Eastern Europe.

Create dictatorship governments in Latin America loyal to the US. But that went all downhill as those Governments really liked to murder its own people.

But the biggest threat to the US was still USSR and Communism.

So they created a Congress For Cultural Freedom office, which was set up in 35 countries, including Eastern Bloc countries. The Office was run by the CIA and they used music as its centrepiece, to put on concerts and promote anti-communist behaviour via placing the records of banned artists secretly in the hands of citizens.

So I had a look at the “Crazy World” album from Scorpions and its lyrical references. There is no doubt that the more social conscience lyrics in “Winds Of Change” are a departure from their “rock you like a hurricane” and “rhythm of love” lyrics from their albums before. It’s not like the Scorpions didn’t write these kind of lyrics before. The Uli Jon Roth era had some songs that dealt with society and social issues.

Anyway I thought I would go through the “Crazy World” album lyrics.

So the album kicks off with “Tease Me, Please Me” and it’s about going around the world and loving lots of girls. Basically a song about groupies. “Don’t Believe Her” is about a woman who is a tease and who knows the game of breaking hearts.

“To Be With You In Heaven” is about a woman who will treat you like crap, but her loving is so good, that Klaus would walk through the darkest hell to be with her in heaven. “Restless Nights” talks about making love in Paris and London and rocking hard in Dallas and Rio. Basically the song is about touring and the “sexcess” that comes with it.

“Lust Or Love” is easily predictable based on the title. “Kicks After Six” is about a woman who works nine to five and is a slave to the suit and tie, seven days a week, but each night, this good girl gets her kicks after six and becomes a bad girl who wants it bad.

“Hit Between The Eyes” is a dumb song about feeling tension on the street, getting closer to some invisible heat and that if someone wants to cut you down to size, you can never argue with a 45. Maybe it was their attempt at a social issue around gun control, but then the chorus comes in and it makes no sense whatsoever. Like he is ready for the hit between the eyes, but he wants someone to get him out alive because he is too young to die.

“Money And Fame” is about a woman who just wants money and fame and how she is using Klaus as a stepping stone to something greater. “Send Me An Angel” is about a wise man who is giving advice and to be honest it’s pretty dumb lyrically.

So all the songs listed have lyrics which are pretty standard and about relationships.

Keith Olsen said when he was hired to produce the album, he found the lyrics really dumb and he asked for outside writers like Jim Vallance to come and work with them and tighten em up. But the overall message was still dumb.

And then you have “Winds Of Change”.

With music and lyrics written solely by Klaus Meine.

Songfacts and all of those other websites say that Klaus Meine was inspired by the band’s first visit to the USSR in 1989 for the Music Peace Festival.

Manager Doc McGhee said that Klaus was whistling the melody and he had the basis of the song written in Russia. But look at the lyrics.

Was Klaus capable of writing lyrics like these on his own or did someone else (a CIA ghost writer or speech writer) use Klaus’s melodies and write them for him?

Read this from Keith Olsen;

Interviewer:
You produced The Scorpions Crazy World album, tell us about the recording sessions for that album?

Olsen:
I really liked working with all of them as they were really cool people. Herman Rarebell [drummer] was the guy who spoke the best English, because he had lived in the UK for a while, so he was really good bilingual. So Klaus, Rudolf, Matthias and Francis had a very limited vocabulary in English. So they had a lot of the lyrics always had tease’, please’, me’ very simplified lyric which made us bring in some very good lyric writers to help write.
Keith Olsen in an interview at Ultimate Guitar

And when I look at the lyrics below, it sure feels like the words came from someone else.

I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night, soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in
Did you ever think that we could be so close, like brothers
The futures in the air
I can feel it everywhere, blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

The wind of change blows straight into the face of time
Like a storm wind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of mind let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say

Everyone went to a dictionary to see what a balalaika is.

Regardless if conspiracy or truth, or if they became celebrity James Bond’s, rockers and rock music, changed the world.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Force Is Strong In The Kashmir Effect

Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” is the type of song that is so good, that it has become part of pop culture. The song was released in 1975 on the “Physical Graffiti” album.

Even “Kashmir” is a result of Jimmy Page creating derivative versions of previous ideas and songs. The first thing is the CIA tuning that Jimmy Page first employed with “The Yardbirds”. CIA stands for Celtic-Indian-Arabic and the exact tuning is known as DADGAD, a tuning that Davy Graham used for his 1963 rendition of an old Irish folk song “She Moved Through The Fair” which in turn saw Jimmy Page come along and derive a new song called “White Summer”, and another derivative version called “Black Mountain Side”.

If you don’t know who Davy Graham is, go to YouTube right now and type in “Anji” and prepare to be mesmerized. For all the music geeks out there, check out one of the riffs from “Anji” (that comes in at about the 14 second mark) and then go and listen to Queens Of The Stone Age song “No One Knows”. Hear the riff. While “Anji” wallows in internet obscurity, “No One Knows” has 17,883,776 views on the Queens Of The Stone Age Vevo account.

“Black Mountain Side” was recorded in October 1968 and released in January 1969 on the first Led Zeppelin album. It is credited to Jimmy Page as a writer, however the guitar arrangement closely follows Bert Jansch’s version of “She Moved Through the Fair”, recorded on his 1966 album “Jack Orion” which more or less was a cover of Davy Graham’s 1963 version.

All of these songs are in the same DADGAD tuning that was used for “Kashmir”. I am not saying that these songs sound similar to “Kashmir” however these songs needed to be jammed on, so that Jimmy Page could get used to the DADGAD tuning. You see great songs don’t happen overnight or by a committee. They happen by derivative jamming and by derivative accidents.

If there was any doubt about the power of “Kashmir”, then look no further than the metal and rock movements during the Eighties.

Kingdom Come’s derivative version “Get it On” helped the self-titled Kingdom Come album released in 1988 move over a million units in the U.S. Whitesnake employed the same technique in “Judgement Day” from the “Slip Of The Tongue” album, which even though it didn’t reach the sale heights of the self-titled 1987 album, it still moved over a million copies in 1989.

As Yoda would say, the force is strong in “Kashmir”. Kashmir’s legacy in pop culture was solidified in the Nineties when the main riff was used by Puff Daddy in the song “Come with Me”.

The defining part of the song is the ascending chromatic riff over a pedal point which is made even greater by the drumming from John Bonham, playing slightly behind the beat.

Dave Mustaine is a great employer of this technique. “In My Darkest Hour” and “The Call Of Ktulu/Hanger 18” both employ this technique, however there are other Mustaine penned songs that also include this technique. Progress is derivative is the mantra that I employ.

“Mary Jane” from the “So Far, So Good, So What” album released in 1988 has that riff that comes in at 0.46 and continues throughout the song. If it sounds familiar, it should, it is a very close derivative version of “In My Darkest Hour”. Both songs are similar and both songs have the ascending bass line over a pedal point.

“This Was My Life” from the “Countdown To Extinction” album released in 1992 has the main verse riff.

“Public Enema Number 1” from the “Th1rte3n” album released in 2011 has the main verse riff.

“The Kingmaker” from the “Super Collider” album released in 2013 has the Chorus riff.

Billy Squier also employed “The Kashmir Effect” and “The Ramble On Effect” in his song, “Lonely Is the Night” from the album “Don’t Say No” released in 1981. The music is “Ramble On” and the beat is “Kashmir”.

Guess progress really is derivative.

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