October 3, 2023 • 17 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, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. At the height of the Cold War, with the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
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 (00:33):
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, Flumy beat Ze. I'm Formuldau. I'm a poet,
(01:00):
a lover of not only the lyric poem, but the
song lyric view. Over the past several years, I've got
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
our era.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
And will you look at me? It's happened. I'm going
on to I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
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 (01:36):
She I'm a songwriter. My God, will that that crypt homie?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
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 USSR.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
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 (02:12):
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
(02:34):
against Soviet control. This nineteen sixty eight report from ABC
News highlights the extent of the operation.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
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 (02:55):
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 radio.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Chuck Berry wrote a song called Back in the US,
which we were very familiar with, and so I kind
of thought it was it was kind of cool. It
was obviously a serviceman returning home, right, going back into
the UX, going back into his home civilization.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
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 USA from glassing over the
(04:15):
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.
(04:47):
Paul McCartney and the Beatles loved Chuck Berry, and they
loved this upbeat, celebratory anthem. But not a decade had best.
The Vietnam War was a total failure, and the world's
love affair with American culture had started to wear off.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
It was a little bit.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Two pro us because we were in the UK, so
I could pokephone on 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 parody on Chuck's idea of
(05:31):
being back, and I would have a Russian guy who'd
come from America and was glad to be back in Russia.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
And it comes from Miami.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
On BOAC British Overseasys Corporation.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
BOAC, He's our standing contribution to the second generation of
jet airliners.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
In the Economy Cloud.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The standard is so high the passengers can easily this
way themselves. But the VIP.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
One medium drive vodka, my team mixed.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
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 Ministers talked to Moscow.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
They're saying it was an accident during a routine training exercise.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Governments change the lies, except he wouldn't be reporting to
MI I six or Dame Judy Dench rather the KGB.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
He's flying home from Miami he's just been to sunny Florida,
maybe hanging out on the beach, which gets us to
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 unions bed.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Wesbian.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
The harmonies of the Bridge were inspired by the Beach Boys.
In fact, when the Beatles went to India in nineteen
sixty it to meditate Mike love Off the Beach Boys
was there too. He is even claimed in several interviews
that he gave McCartney the idea for that part of
(07:45):
the song where the Beach Boys fit into this.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Well, there were big influences run about the time. So
this as I'm doing a parody of Chuck.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And I'm doing it.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
I'm doing it American, but it's it's a Russian guy
having all the sentiments. So I'm using stuff from the
Beach Boys for the parody. So when I'm going Ukraine,
(08:28):
girls really knocked me out, I'm thinking, California, you girls
will knock me out. West beyonds make me saying shall
(08:49):
I think I was very lucky, as I say, when
I hit this little humorous vein. It seemed to just
sort of flow. So I hear, I know what I'm
doing now, I'm 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 and we got Georgia. Well,
(09:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Mind, George Georgia, the.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Ray Charles Homestead of Georgia is suddenly transformed into the
Soviet satellite 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 B Oac Jet.
(09:59):
I don't think I ever understood at the time that
Boac was in the first line.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I'm not sure if I ever I understood what it was. Yeah,
that horrifying you. No, not at all.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
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 USSR anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
There isn't a.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
BOAC, and I 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 a rock
and song. But I mean, obviously the joke is that
Identic split.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
It up back in the US. Back in the US,
back in the USSR had well beyond.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
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 5 (11:30):
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. I mean, I remember when we first
went to Berlin and to look over the.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Wall, 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 5 (11:57):
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 (12:06):
Technical people in Eastern Germany continue to risk their lives
to escape to the free world.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
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
(12:35):
were getting smuggled along with Levi Jeans. This was like
true cultural arrival.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
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
(13:11):
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 Puttin, then serving
(13:33):
his first term as president. There's actually a new clip
of the occasion and you see Puttin and McCartney sitting
across from each other like two statesmen, and then Paul
McCartney pops the question.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
You were growing up, did you listen to the Beatles? No,
he's missing.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
Yes, it was extremely popular it was like a velp
of freedom. Your music was like an open window to
the world.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It was it was bound by the authority.
Speaker 7 (14:05):
Sure it was considered that this time a propaganda of
some alien ideology.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
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
(14:37):
in churches, once again closing 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
(14:57):
history music has served as a beacon of freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Art is dangerous to some people.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
We always thought that we were on the right side,
that if we were dangerous, we were dangerous to the
Russian authorities.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
And to us that said, they're not that good.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It's sort of that was how we felt, and I
think it was true to a large extent that they
were trying to suppress this Western influence.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And it goes on.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
You know, I know there was a perioden you thought, oh,
it's all clear enough, but it's actually suppression is back
big time.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
You know. It's sort of many countries now and.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
It's sort of been given a free pass, and everyone's
kind of 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
(16:08):
a song like this.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Bluey by Miami beat us.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
To bed last night.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
On a way of Paper, Beatles on my kneed man,
I had a tapley.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Don't you.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
Back in the.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Uss A.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Been away on Holy neon.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of Gee, it's good to be back home.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
He even do Moto doing back by.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Case back in the US s R 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 his late mother visited him in a dream
(17:05):
and gave him some words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Seeing beautiful kind face was very confident. I immediately felt
at ease and.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Loved 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
(17:39):
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries
Pushkin. At the height of the Cold War, with the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
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 (00:33):
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, Flumy beat Ze. I'm Formuldau. I'm a poet,
(01:00):
a lover of not only the lyric poem, but the
song lyric view. Over the past several years, I've got
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
our era.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
And will you look at me? It's happened. I'm going
on to I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
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 (01:36):
She I'm a songwriter. My God, will that that crypt homie?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
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 USSR.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
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 (02:12):
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
(02:34):
against Soviet control. This nineteen sixty eight report from ABC
News highlights the extent of the operation.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
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 (02:55):
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 radio.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Chuck Berry wrote a song called Back in the US,
which we were very familiar with, and so I kind
of thought it was it was kind of cool. It
was obviously a serviceman returning home, right, going back into
the UX, going back into his home civilization.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
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 USA from glassing over the
(04:15):
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.
(04:47):
Paul McCartney and the Beatles loved Chuck Berry, and they
loved this upbeat, celebratory anthem. But not a decade had best.
The Vietnam War was a total failure, and the world's
love affair with American culture had started to wear off.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
It was a little bit.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Two pro us because we were in the UK, so
I could pokephone on 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 parody on Chuck's idea of
(05:31):
being back, and I would have a Russian guy who'd
come from America and was glad to be back in Russia.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
And it comes from Miami.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
On BOAC British Overseasys Corporation.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
BOAC, He's our standing contribution to the second generation of
jet airliners.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
In the Economy Cloud.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The standard is so high the passengers can easily this
way themselves. But the VIP.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
One medium drive vodka, my team mixed.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
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 Ministers talked to Moscow.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
They're saying it was an accident during a routine training exercise.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Governments change the lies, except he wouldn't be reporting to
MI I six or Dame Judy Dench rather the KGB.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
He's flying home from Miami he's just been to sunny Florida,
maybe hanging out on the beach, which gets us to
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 unions bed.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Wesbian.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
The harmonies of the Bridge were inspired by the Beach Boys.
In fact, when the Beatles went to India in nineteen
sixty it to meditate Mike love Off the Beach Boys
was there too. He is even claimed in several interviews
that he gave McCartney the idea for that part of
(07:45):
the song where the Beach Boys fit into this.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Well, there were big influences run about the time. So
this as I'm doing a parody of Chuck.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And I'm doing it.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
I'm doing it American, but it's it's a Russian guy
having all the sentiments. So I'm using stuff from the
Beach Boys for the parody. So when I'm going Ukraine,
(08:28):
girls really knocked me out, I'm thinking, California, you girls
will knock me out. West beyonds make me saying shall
(08:49):
I think I was very lucky, as I say, when
I hit this little humorous vein. It seemed to just
sort of flow. So I hear, I know what I'm
doing now, I'm 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 and we got Georgia. Well,
(09:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Mind, George Georgia, the.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Ray Charles Homestead of Georgia is suddenly transformed into the
Soviet satellite 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 B Oac Jet.
(09:59):
I don't think I ever understood at the time that
Boac was in the first line.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I'm not sure if I ever I understood what it was. Yeah,
that horrifying you. No, not at all.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
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 USSR anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
There isn't a.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
BOAC, and I 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 a rock
and song. But I mean, obviously the joke is that
Identic split.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
It up back in the US. Back in the US,
back in the USSR had well beyond.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
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 5 (11:30):
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. I mean, I remember when we first
went to Berlin and to look over the.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Wall, 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 5 (11:57):
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 (12:06):
Technical people in Eastern Germany continue to risk their lives
to escape to the free world.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
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
(12:35):
were getting smuggled along with Levi Jeans. This was like
true cultural arrival.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
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
(13:11):
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 Puttin, then serving
(13:33):
his first term as president. There's actually a new clip
of the occasion and you see Puttin and McCartney sitting
across from each other like two statesmen, and then Paul
McCartney pops the question.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
You were growing up, did you listen to the Beatles? No,
he's missing.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
Yes, it was extremely popular it was like a velp
of freedom. Your music was like an open window to
the world.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It was it was bound by the authority.
Speaker 7 (14:05):
Sure it was considered that this time a propaganda of
some alien ideology.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
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
(14:37):
in churches, once again closing 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
(14:57):
history music has served as a beacon of freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Art is dangerous to some people.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
We always thought that we were on the right side,
that if we were dangerous, we were dangerous to the
Russian authorities.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
And to us that said, they're not that good.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It's sort of that was how we felt, and I
think it was true to a large extent that they
were trying to suppress this Western influence.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And it goes on.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
You know, I know there was a perioden you thought, oh,
it's all clear enough, but it's actually suppression is back
big time.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
You know. It's sort of many countries now and.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
It's sort of been given a free pass, and everyone's
kind of 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
(16:08):
a song like this.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Bluey by Miami beat us.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
To bed last night.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
On a way of Paper, Beatles on my kneed man,
I had a tapley.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Don't you.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
Back in the.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Uss A.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
Been away on Holy neon.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of Gee, it's good to be back home.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
He even do Moto doing back by.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Case back in the US s R 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 his late mother visited him in a dream
(17:05):
and gave him some words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Seeing beautiful kind face was very confident. I immediately felt
at ease and.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Loved 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
(17:39):
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries
Host
Paul McCartney
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