https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSkn5Mk10Y0
Both “Don’t Shoot” and “This Train Is On Fire” address the very real impact of state-sanctioned war and violence, particularly upon younger generations (in “This Train Is On Fire,” the last verse affirms “…the people who shot our fathers are now making plans for our youths”). These lyrical themes, combined with the stylistic choices of the performers (communally-sung choruses, etc.), reminded me of anti-war folk music from the 1960s. Songs like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Only a Pawn in Their Game” address similar themes and employ the same singer-as-poet dynamic of earlier Russian bards (Bob Dylan seems to be a prime example of this). Yurchak mentioned that Western “songs of protest” were officially endorsed by the state, even if their lyrical messages were lost upon Soviet listeners (191). I am wondering if the content of Soviet anti-war songs was inspired at all by Western anti-war music from the Vietnam War era. Would bands like Aquarium or DDT have had access to the music of Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, and if so, was the ideological content of these songs clear?
