Cold War Pop Songs

The Cold War began at the end of World War Two (the Truman Doctrine of 1947 is typically used as a starting point) and is commonly perceived to have ended with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 (although it is arguable that the Cold War never ended). This blog post and presentation covers a period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s and focuses on popular music produced within the Soviet Union. I want to contextualize this music within the Cold War and consider its relation to two external spaces: outer-space and France.


1. Vyacheslav Mescherin and Outer-Space
In Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, Alexei Yurchak discusses the “explosion of interest in the 1960s in various cultural and intellectual pursuits based on the experience of a faraway ‘elsewhere’” (Yurchak 160). These experiences would often stem from western popular music and culminate in imaginings of the West or other non-specific foreign places. Yurchak uses the trope of ‘The Zone’ (e.g. in the film Zona and the novel Piknik na obochine) as an example of this imagined elsewhere in popular fiction. I’d like to look at another elsewhere: outer-space. I will argue, however, that this elsewhere was not the product of admiration for western culture or discontent with Soviet insularity, as were those discussed by Yurchak, but rather that outer-space was a “faraway ‘elsewhere’” that could be used by the government and musicians alike to demonstrate the successes of Soviet socialism. Outer-space may not have been accessible to the population-at-large, but it was nevertheless a beacon of public imagination. And, in the Cold War, it became a symbol of socialist success over American capitalism. Outer-space was a way of re-contextualizing these ideologies – the lengthy flaws of Soviet socialism could be eclipsed by the same system sending a satellite into space before its western counterpart had.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik-1, into space. A few years later in 1961, the Soviet Union sent Yuri Gagarin into space with Vostok-1. The former represented a “tremendous victory” to Khrushchev, whereas conversely American president Dwight Eisenhower’s approval ratings were damaged (Gallup). It was “a turning point in civilization that could only be achieved by a country with first rate conditions in a vast area of science and engineering”, claimed the New York Times (Brzezinski 199). In the Soviet Union national pride became cosmic patriotism, and imaginings of outer-space dominated popular culture. In retrospect, the success of Vyacheslav Mescherin and his Orchestra of Electronic Instruments seems almost inevitable in this context. Innovative in his manipulation of electronics and playful in his imagery, Mescherin’s music immediately evokes images of outer-space in the imagination of the listener. Having founded the “Orchestra” in 1957, Mescherin’s breakthrough supposedly came when the government approached him to record a version of the Socialist anthem ‘Internationale’, to be sent aboard Sputnik-1. Whether or not this anecdote is true, it is nevertheless indicative of Soviet music’s relationships with socialism and outer-space. The image of a socialist anthem in literal transcendence and orbit of earth adds further humiliation to American capitalist ‘defeat’.

Vyacheslav Mescherin produced the music for the science fiction film Nebo Zovyot (1959), while the sleeves of his records depict space-age settings. But his music did more than just echo Soviet achievements in the Space Race. In a period in which “the United States as much as the Soviet Union put enormous efforts into proving to the world – and to themselves – the superiority of their respective systems through complex programmes of what could be called ‘cultural warfare'”, Mescherin’s music provided cultural artefacts that could encapsulate socialism’s successes (Rupprecht 19). With titles such as ‘On The Kolkhoz Poultry Farm’ and ‘Persistent Robot’, his typically upbeat songs emulated the socialist realism that had colored (and continued to color) Soviet life, from agriculture through to technology. Simultaneously impersonal and relatable, Mescherin’s lyric-less music did not possess the threat of misinterpretation. Instead, it evoked feelings of Soviet achievement in its ability to combine futuristic synthesizer sounds with, for example, images of collectivized farming (in ‘On The Kolkhoz Poultry Farm’ synthesizers emulate a clucking chicken). Technological innovation (in electronic music and in space science) and the simplicity of life and unity of the labor classes (both rural and urban) were portrayed as successes of the same socialist system. His music was unproblematic and unopposed in the USSR (Mescherin won the People’s Artist of the USSR award) because its aesthetic and imagination embodied socialism’s perceived achievements both on earth and in space.

[Ironically, one of the closest aesthetic comparisons to draw with Mescherin’s music is with Muzak. A natural conclusion of music-as-capitalism, Muzak is the instrumental and anonymous background music played in shopping malls, airports and elevators across the world, but of American origin. As Theodor Adorno might see it, Muzak is an “inescapable product” (Adorno 288) or “the musical consciousness of the masses” (Adorno 270).]


2. France and “Good” Internationalism

I would also like to touch on two other recordings, both covers of French songs by Soviet musicians, that can be contextualized within the cultural Cold War. The first is an instrumental version of ‘I Will Wait For You’ from the French musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. This version was recorded by the Melodiya Ensemble (released 1973). Whether or not they were the official house band for Melodiya Records is unclear, but they did nonetheless release numerous recordings on the label. Melodiya Records was the sole state-run record label and mass producer of music in the Soviet Union until the mid-1980s, initially releasing classical recordings before moving onto popular music. The second song is a cover of Francoise Hardy’s ‘It Hurts To Say Goodbye’ by Russian singer Aida Vedishcheva (released 1974). Aida Vedishcheva’s version keeps the melody of the original, but the lyrics are rewritten and sung by Vedishcheva in Russian.

In the post-Stalin era, Soviet political decision makers “realized that a good image had
concrete advantages for their state, as it strengthened its position in the international system, vesting it with ‘soft power'” (Rupprecht 19). Popular culture – and particularly popular music – was a common denominator that could be used to negotiate this “good image”. The decades following Stalin’s death were culturally defined by both the cultural ‘thaw’ and de-Stalinization of Khrushchev’s office but also, later, the banning of western musical acts en masse. The two songs discussed here thus demonstrate the paradoxes of the Soviet Union’s changing positions on international popular music. In their renditions of French pop songs (by a band associated with the country’s state-run record label and a leading Soviet pop singer, respectively), these recordings illustrate an embracing of and potential cooperation with western popular culture. However, by removing the vocals in the case of ‘I Will Wait For You’ and translating them in ‘It Hurts To Say Goodbye’, they also demonstrate acts of Russification. They may have originally been French songs, but they had been altered to suit Soviet desires. What may possibly have been “bad forms of international culture” (Yurchak 162) had been reinterpreted to instead represent both “good” internationalism and Soviet cultural agency. Further, they suggest an expansion in Soviet cultural reach, playing on popular imaginings of western culture.

These two recordings can also be read in the context of Mark Carroll’s text from week seven of this course, Music and Ideology in Cold War Europe. In this, France is described as a “pawn in an ideological struggle” beyond its control (Carroll 9), seen by “Western and Soviet strategists as the soft underbelly of the NATO alliance” (Carroll 8). France pulled out of NATO in 1966, demonstrating its desire to retain international independence but also raising concerns within the Western bloc that its Cold War position was neutral or, worse, potentially susceptible to Soviet influence. With France’s departure from NATO, Charles de Gaulle’s dislike for American and British hegemony, and the revolutionary promise of 1968’s protests, might the Soviet Union have perceived France to be a less threatening (or even kindred) cultural force and one whose music was ready for state appropriation? Is France another example of an elsewhere that was explored not out of discontent with Soviet culture but this time as an effort at expressing cultural agency or soft power control over western cultural forms?

What these two songs and the music of Vyacheslav Mescherin also indicate is a long-standing desire within Soviet musical culture for simplicity and accessibility. This is illustrated in each example: Mescherin’s strong simplistic melodies and similarity to easy-listening music or Muzak, Melodiya’s instrumental lounge-jazz version of an overtly emotional and theatrical composition, and Vedishcheva’s success as a middle-of-the-road pop singer. One Russian music blog says of Vedishcheva, “she tells beautiful stories about human relations [that] you could imagine at every soviet [sic.] factory or kolkhoz. She’s happy in spring and sad in autumn” (blog, ex-Soviet Union Music). Coincidentally, Vedishcheva’s altered lyrics for ‘It Hurts To Say Goodbye’ feature the line, roughly, “Spring has colored earth into the most beautiful colors”. This description of Vedishcheva’s music draws together the proletariat and peasantry, painting both in a distinctly positive light. Vedishcheva’s music was accessible and widely popular, holding, as Mescherin’s had done, the ability to demonstrate Soviet society as peaceful and united. But whereas Mescherin had used outer-space to do so, Vedishcheva and Melodiya adopted French popular songs in their efforts.


Conclusion
Two examples of a “faraway ‘elsewhere'” space (Yurchak 160) are described above. The first is a cosmic space; the successes in outer-space that captured the imaginations of the Soviet people and dominated popular culture. The Space Race was a demonstration of the Soviet Union’s emergence as a super-power and the apparent success of its socialist system. Mescherin’s music captures this, while also making sure to emulate the happy simplicity of Soviet life on the ground. The second is an international space, centred on France and its Cold War ambivalence. Melodiya Ensemble and Aida Vedishcheva, both prominent Soviet performers, reinterpreted French songs. Motivations for these recordings are unclear but implications are less so; the recordings demonstrate cultural agency and a cautious Soviet internationalism.


Bibliography

Adorno, T. ‘On The Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening’, originally in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1938)

Brzezinski, M. Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age, Times Books (2007)

Carroll, M. Music and Ideology in Cold War Europe, Cambridge University Press (2003)

Rupprecht, T. ‘Soviet Internationalism after Stalin. The USSR and Latin America in the Cultural Cold War’, EUI (2012)

Yurchak, A. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, Princeton University Press (2005)

Web sources:

ex-Soviet Union Music, Aida Vedishcheva. Retrieved from http://ex-soviet.blogspot.com/2006/03/aida-vedischeva.html

Gallup, Presidential approval ratings. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistic<cods-trends.aspx