October 4, 2023 • 18 mins
What’s Paul McCartney, a Liverpudlian, doing writing about the Soviet Union in 1968? Turns out McCartney was doing a little Chuck Berry, a bit of The Beach Boys, some pastiche and a lot of subversion. Opening “The White Album”, “Back in the U.S.S.R.” raised some eyebrows. And because of The Beatles’ evolving position within the former Eastern Bloc the song has over the years taken on a life of its own, following the trajectory of the West’s often fraught relationship with the region.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics
show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm
slash plus. At the height of the Cold War, with.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
The closing of the border, Soviet divisions in East Germany
were on the move, with combat forces brought into strategic
positions for the contest over the status of Berlin.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
At a time when two halves of the world were
separated by an iron curtain. On the brink of nuclear war,
the Beatles released Well, a strange kind of rock and
roll song, beating I'm formal dou I'm a poet, a
(01:30):
lover of not only the lyric poem, but the song lyric.
Over the past several years, I've got to spend time
with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And will you look at me? It's happened. I'm going
on too. I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's sir Paul McCartney. He and I worked on a
book together, looking at the lyrics of more than one
hundred and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many
hours of our conversations.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
She'm a songwriter. My god, well that that crypto.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics. It's a masterclass,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music in this episode. Back
in the.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
USSR, mobilization efforts during the last months of nineteen sixty
one brought the United States Army to a strength of
over a million men, subsequently increasing our troops strength throughout Europe.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It's hard to imagine just how puzzling it would have
been in nineteen sixty eight to hear a song about
somebody being happy to leave the West and go back
to the Soviet Union. Only a few months before, Russian
tanks had rolled into Prague to crack down on protests
(03:03):
against Soviet control. This nineteen sixty eight report from ABC
News highlights the extent of the operation.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Russian tanks and infantry, aided by troops from East Germany, Hungary, Poland,
and Bulgaria, have occupied Czechoslovakia and have crushed the new
and relatively liberal leadership of that small country.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
The way this song turns the cultural and political world
order on its head is what makes it the joke
of an era. As was often the case for McCartney,
he drew inspiration from what was happening in the wider world,
as well as from the songs that were playing on
his Radioway.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Tub Berry wrote a song called Back in the US,
which we were very familiar with, and so I kind
of thought it was its kind of cool. It was
obviously a serviceman returning home, going back into the ux
going back into his own civilization.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Chuck Berry had come back from a trip to Australia
where he had witnessed the dismal living conditions of the
indigenous population, and he wrote this song as a kind
of anthem to his glorious.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
USA, from the California to the Delaware.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Being glassing over the struggles of the American civil rights
movement at the time. Berry's song is a celebration of
capitalism and the economic boom of the nineteen fifties, of
drive ins and sizzling Hamburgers. Paul McCartney and the Beatles
(05:18):
loved Chuck Berry and they loved this upbeat, celebratory anthem.
But not a decade at best. The Vietnam War was
a total failure and the world's love affair with American
culture had started to wear off.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
There was a little bit two pro us because we
were in the UK, so I could pokephone at it
in my own way. And when I saw that US
sr was kind of similar, then I realized I could
sit back in the US. I could do a little
(05:58):
parody on Chuck's idea of being back, and I would
have a Russian guy who'd come from America and was
glad to be back in Russia. And it come from Miami.
On BOAC British Overseas Ways Corporation.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
BOAC is outstanding contribution to the second generation of jet airliners.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The speaker of the song the protagonist flies back to
the Soviet Union with the glamour of modern jet travel,
like that showcased in this nineteen sixty four ad for
BOAC in.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
The Economy clouds.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The standard is so high that passengers can easily persuade themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
But they're VIPs traveling.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But one medium drive vot com team mixed.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Like you said, who is this man? It's easy to
imagine him as a kind of suave jet setter, fluent
in many languages, lots of charm, maybe like a James
Bond type. The Prime Minister's talked to Moscow.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They're saying it was an accident during a routine training exercise.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Governments change the last except he wouldn't be reporting to
MI I six or Damn Judy Dench rather the KGB.
He's flying home from Miami. He's just been to sunny Florida,
maybe hanging out on the beach, which gets us to
(07:27):
the bridge. If the verse is setting up a joke,
the punchline is the bridge when our protagonist starts listing
the territories of the former Soviet Union Wesban. The harmonies
(07:55):
of the Bridge were inspired by the Beach Boys. In fact,
when the Beatles went to India in nineteen sixty eight
to meditate, Mike love Off, the Beach Boys was there too.
He is even clear in several interviews that he gave
McCartney the idea for that part of the song where
(08:16):
the Beach Boys fit into this.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Well, there were big influencers round about the time, so
this as I'm doing a parody of chuck and I'm
doing it. I'm doing it American, but it's a it's
a Russian guy having all the sentiments. So I'm using
(08:40):
stuff from the Beach Boys for the parody. So when
I'm going Ukraine girls really knocked me out, I'm thinking
of California. Your girls will knock me out. Wesbian. I
(09:18):
think I was very lucky, as I say, when I
hit this little humorous veins, it seemed to just sort
of flow. So I hear, I know what I'm doing.
Now it's in the middle. So now I'm going to
go into detail about the countries and the territories. So
we got Ukraine, and we've got Moscow, and we've got Georgia. Well,
(09:41):
if I say Georgia, I think of the old American
song Georgia on my Mind, which I would be thinking
of the Ray Charles Georgia on my Mind. Georgia, Georgia, the.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Ray Charms homestead of Georgia is suddenly transformed into the
Soviet South Light Nation of Georgia. And now the joke
is complete, leaving behind the sun and fun of Miami
and old sweet Georgia. We break through the wall, eager
to get back into the USSR on board R BOAC.
(10:27):
Yet I don't think I ever understood at the time
that BOAC was in the first line. I'm not sure
if I ever quite understood what it was.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, now does that to horrify you, No, not at all.
I mean I'm still finding things in these lyrics, but
I do sometimes think, I mean, particularly about this one,
how amazingly ancient all the ideas are. Now there isn't
a uss R anymore, there isn't a BOAC, and I
(11:04):
often wonder, like you didn't get it. I don't think
the kids get it. I'm not sure they know what
USSR was. It's just it's song. But I mean, obviously
the joke is that I then split it up back
in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
While the song has an upbeat, rock and roll energy,
the subtext of the lyrics is certainly more bittersweet. The
Soviet Union at the time was a totalitarian state with
strong censorship in place.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
You know, it was always gray. So I mean, when
I'm writing this song, it's very much tongue in cheek.
I'm not really thinking there's anything for this guy to
go back to. Who I remember we first went to
Berlin and to looked over the wall.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Aware of their special responsibilities on this trouble spot between
the free and communist worlds. American soldiers of the Berlin
Garrison are combat ready and alert.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
To me, I just knew there was like a vast
gray expense that was beyond this wall, and that we
were all in.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Technical people in Eastern Germany continue to risk their lives
to escape to the free world.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Everyone in Russia who goes back to the Beatles period
remembers having to smuggle records or it was all very
you know, little rooms where you could play and you
didn't want people to know. You didn't want the authorities
to know that you were listening to this forbidden group,
which really we loved the idea of that, that we
(13:04):
were getting smuggled along with Levi Itenes. This was like
true cultural arrival.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
A little over a decade after the fall of the
Soviet Union, McCartney really did arrive when he was invited
to give a concert on Red Square in Moscow, and
(13:40):
when he played back in the usas r he felt
the whole crowd rise and join in the song. During
his time in Russia, this was two thousand and three,
McCartney got to meet a young Vladimir Putin, then serving
(14:02):
his first term as president. There's actually a news clip
of the occasion and you see Putin and McCartney sitting
across from each other like two statesmen. And then Paul
McCartney pops the question.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You were growing up, did you listen to the Beatles?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
No, dismissing, yes, it was extremely popular. It was like
a gulp of freedom. Your music was like an open
window to the world.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
It was it was bound by the authorititure.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
It was considered at this time a propaganda of some
alien ideology.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It would have seemed unimaginable then that twenty years later
the same man would order Russian troops to invade Ukraine,
an act of war unparalleled in Europe since the end
of the Second World War, cracking down on any protest,
arresting journalists, assassinating political enemies, jailing young women for singing
(15:06):
in churches, once again the window to the outside world.
My conversation with Paul McCartney took place before the current
war in Ukraine, but during our time together we often
spoke about the subversive nature of art and how throughout
(15:26):
history music has served as a beacon of freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Art is dangerous to some people. We always thought that
we were on the right side, that if we were dangerous,
we were dangerous to the Russian authorities and to us
that said they're not that good. It's sort of that
was how we felt, and I think it was true
(15:56):
to a large extent that they were trying to suppress
this Western influence and it goes on. You know, I
know there was appearing when you thought, oh, it's all
clear enough, but it's actually the suppression and is back
big time. You know. It's sort of many countries now
and it's sort of been given a free pass and
(16:20):
everyone's gonna stimied and sort of saying no, please, don't
do that. But I mean, God knows what the politics
and the realities are behind it for any rate. So
for me, it's kind of nice to just escape into
a song like this.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Bluey by Miami B to b U a CD last
night on a way to paper Papers on the knee,
I had.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
A bad ball back.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
On you.
Speaker 6 (17:03):
Been a ways a hardly a face. Gee, it's good
to be bad.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Home back in the USSR from the nineteen sixty eight
record titled The Beatles, also known as the White Album.
In the next episode, Paul McCartney tells us about how
(17:30):
his late mother visited him in a dream and gave
him some words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Seeing her beautiful, kind face was very confident. I immediately
felt at ease and loved.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
One of the Beatles' last hits, Let It Be, is
an answer to the band's inner turmoil and to Hamlet's
age old question to be or not to be? McCartney
A Life in Lyrics is a co production between Heartmedia
(18:10):
NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics
show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm
slash plus. At the height of the Cold War, with.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
The closing of the border, Soviet divisions in East Germany
were on the move, with combat forces brought into strategic
positions for the contest over the status of Berlin.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
At a time when two halves of the world were
separated by an iron curtain. On the brink of nuclear war,
the Beatles released Well, a strange kind of rock and
roll song, beating I'm formal dou I'm a poet, a
(01:30):
lover of not only the lyric poem, but the song lyric.
Over the past several years, I've got to spend time
with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And will you look at me? It's happened. I'm going
on too. I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's sir Paul McCartney. He and I worked on a
book together, looking at the lyrics of more than one
hundred and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many
hours of our conversations.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
She'm a songwriter. My god, well that that crypto.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics. It's a masterclass,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music in this episode. Back
in the.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
USSR, mobilization efforts during the last months of nineteen sixty
one brought the United States Army to a strength of
over a million men, subsequently increasing our troops strength throughout Europe.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It's hard to imagine just how puzzling it would have
been in nineteen sixty eight to hear a song about
somebody being happy to leave the West and go back
to the Soviet Union. Only a few months before, Russian
tanks had rolled into Prague to crack down on protests
(03:03):
against Soviet control. This nineteen sixty eight report from ABC
News highlights the extent of the operation.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Russian tanks and infantry, aided by troops from East Germany, Hungary, Poland,
and Bulgaria, have occupied Czechoslovakia and have crushed the new
and relatively liberal leadership of that small country.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
The way this song turns the cultural and political world
order on its head is what makes it the joke
of an era. As was often the case for McCartney,
he drew inspiration from what was happening in the wider world,
as well as from the songs that were playing on
his Radioway.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Tub Berry wrote a song called Back in the US,
which we were very familiar with, and so I kind
of thought it was its kind of cool. It was
obviously a serviceman returning home, going back into the ux
going back into his own civilization.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Chuck Berry had come back from a trip to Australia
where he had witnessed the dismal living conditions of the
indigenous population, and he wrote this song as a kind
of anthem to his glorious.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
USA, from the California to the Delaware.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Being glassing over the struggles of the American civil rights
movement at the time. Berry's song is a celebration of
capitalism and the economic boom of the nineteen fifties, of
drive ins and sizzling Hamburgers. Paul McCartney and the Beatles
(05:18):
loved Chuck Berry and they loved this upbeat, celebratory anthem.
But not a decade at best. The Vietnam War was
a total failure and the world's love affair with American
culture had started to wear off.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
There was a little bit two pro us because we
were in the UK, so I could pokephone at it
in my own way. And when I saw that US
sr was kind of similar, then I realized I could
sit back in the US. I could do a little
(05:58):
parody on Chuck's idea of being back, and I would
have a Russian guy who'd come from America and was
glad to be back in Russia. And it come from Miami.
On BOAC British Overseas Ways Corporation.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
BOAC is outstanding contribution to the second generation of jet airliners.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The speaker of the song the protagonist flies back to
the Soviet Union with the glamour of modern jet travel,
like that showcased in this nineteen sixty four ad for
BOAC in.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
The Economy clouds.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The standard is so high that passengers can easily persuade themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
But they're VIPs traveling.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But one medium drive vot com team mixed.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Like you said, who is this man? It's easy to
imagine him as a kind of suave jet setter, fluent
in many languages, lots of charm, maybe like a James
Bond type. The Prime Minister's talked to Moscow.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They're saying it was an accident during a routine training exercise.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Governments change the last except he wouldn't be reporting to
MI I six or Damn Judy Dench rather the KGB.
He's flying home from Miami. He's just been to sunny Florida,
maybe hanging out on the beach, which gets us to
(07:27):
the bridge. If the verse is setting up a joke,
the punchline is the bridge when our protagonist starts listing
the territories of the former Soviet Union Wesban. The harmonies
(07:55):
of the Bridge were inspired by the Beach Boys. In fact,
when the Beatles went to India in nineteen sixty eight
to meditate, Mike love Off, the Beach Boys was there too.
He is even clear in several interviews that he gave
McCartney the idea for that part of the song where
(08:16):
the Beach Boys fit into this.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Well, there were big influencers round about the time, so
this as I'm doing a parody of chuck and I'm
doing it. I'm doing it American, but it's a it's
a Russian guy having all the sentiments. So I'm using
(08:40):
stuff from the Beach Boys for the parody. So when
I'm going Ukraine girls really knocked me out, I'm thinking
of California. Your girls will knock me out. Wesbian. I
(09:18):
think I was very lucky, as I say, when I
hit this little humorous veins, it seemed to just sort
of flow. So I hear, I know what I'm doing.
Now it's in the middle. So now I'm going to
go into detail about the countries and the territories. So
we got Ukraine, and we've got Moscow, and we've got Georgia. Well,
(09:41):
if I say Georgia, I think of the old American
song Georgia on my Mind, which I would be thinking
of the Ray Charles Georgia on my Mind. Georgia, Georgia, the.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Ray Charms homestead of Georgia is suddenly transformed into the
Soviet South Light Nation of Georgia. And now the joke
is complete, leaving behind the sun and fun of Miami
and old sweet Georgia. We break through the wall, eager
to get back into the USSR on board R BOAC.
(10:27):
Yet I don't think I ever understood at the time
that BOAC was in the first line. I'm not sure
if I ever quite understood what it was.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, now does that to horrify you, No, not at all.
I mean I'm still finding things in these lyrics, but
I do sometimes think, I mean, particularly about this one,
how amazingly ancient all the ideas are. Now there isn't
a uss R anymore, there isn't a BOAC, and I
(11:04):
often wonder, like you didn't get it. I don't think
the kids get it. I'm not sure they know what
USSR was. It's just it's song. But I mean, obviously
the joke is that I then split it up back
in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
While the song has an upbeat, rock and roll energy,
the subtext of the lyrics is certainly more bittersweet. The
Soviet Union at the time was a totalitarian state with
strong censorship in place.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
You know, it was always gray. So I mean, when
I'm writing this song, it's very much tongue in cheek.
I'm not really thinking there's anything for this guy to
go back to. Who I remember we first went to
Berlin and to looked over the wall.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Aware of their special responsibilities on this trouble spot between
the free and communist worlds. American soldiers of the Berlin
Garrison are combat ready and alert.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
To me, I just knew there was like a vast
gray expense that was beyond this wall, and that we
were all in.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Technical people in Eastern Germany continue to risk their lives
to escape to the free world.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Everyone in Russia who goes back to the Beatles period
remembers having to smuggle records or it was all very
you know, little rooms where you could play and you
didn't want people to know. You didn't want the authorities
to know that you were listening to this forbidden group,
which really we loved the idea of that, that we
(13:04):
were getting smuggled along with Levi Itenes. This was like
true cultural arrival.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
A little over a decade after the fall of the
Soviet Union, McCartney really did arrive when he was invited
to give a concert on Red Square in Moscow, and
(13:40):
when he played back in the usas r he felt
the whole crowd rise and join in the song. During
his time in Russia, this was two thousand and three,
McCartney got to meet a young Vladimir Putin, then serving
(14:02):
his first term as president. There's actually a news clip
of the occasion and you see Putin and McCartney sitting
across from each other like two statesmen. And then Paul
McCartney pops the question.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You were growing up, did you listen to the Beatles?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
No, dismissing, yes, it was extremely popular. It was like
a gulp of freedom. Your music was like an open
window to the world.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
It was it was bound by the authorititure.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
It was considered at this time a propaganda of some
alien ideology.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It would have seemed unimaginable then that twenty years later
the same man would order Russian troops to invade Ukraine,
an act of war unparalleled in Europe since the end
of the Second World War, cracking down on any protest,
arresting journalists, assassinating political enemies, jailing young women for singing
(15:06):
in churches, once again the window to the outside world.
My conversation with Paul McCartney took place before the current
war in Ukraine, but during our time together we often
spoke about the subversive nature of art and how throughout
(15:26):
history music has served as a beacon of freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Art is dangerous to some people. We always thought that
we were on the right side, that if we were dangerous,
we were dangerous to the Russian authorities and to us
that said they're not that good. It's sort of that
was how we felt, and I think it was true
(15:56):
to a large extent that they were trying to suppress
this Western influence and it goes on. You know, I
know there was appearing when you thought, oh, it's all
clear enough, but it's actually the suppression and is back
big time. You know. It's sort of many countries now
and it's sort of been given a free pass and
(16:20):
everyone's gonna stimied and sort of saying no, please, don't
do that. But I mean, God knows what the politics
and the realities are behind it for any rate. So
for me, it's kind of nice to just escape into
a song like this.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Bluey by Miami B to b U a CD last
night on a way to paper Papers on the knee,
I had.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
A bad ball back.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
On you.
Speaker 6 (17:03):
Been a ways a hardly a face. Gee, it's good
to be bad.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Home back in the USSR from the nineteen sixty eight
record titled The Beatles, also known as the White Album.
In the next episode, Paul McCartney tells us about how
(17:30):
his late mother visited him in a dream and gave
him some words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Seeing her beautiful, kind face was very confident. I immediately
felt at ease and loved.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
One of the Beatles' last hits, Let It Be, is
an answer to the band's inner turmoil and to Hamlet's
age old question to be or not to be? McCartney
A Life in Lyrics is a co production between Heartmedia
(18:10):
NPL and Pushkin Industries.
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