Good Morning/Good Afternoon/Good Evening. Song of The Day. Back in the U.S.S.R. is a 1968 song by The Beatles. It is credited to the songwriting partnership Lennon–McCartney, although it was actually written by Paul McCartney. The song opens the double-disc album The Beatles, also known as the White Album, and then segues into the albums next song, Dear Prudence. The song opens and closes with the sounds of a jet aircraft flying overhead and refers to a dreadful flight back to the U.S.S.R. from Miami Beach in the United States, on board a BOAC aeroplane. Propelled throughout by McCartneys uptempo piano playing and lead guitar riffs, the lyrics tell of the singers great happiness on returning home, where the Ukraine girls really knock me out and the Moscow girls make me sing and shout and are invited to Come and keep your comrade warm. He also looks forward to hearing the sound of balalaikas ringing out. Paul McCartney wrote the song while the Beatles were in Rishikesh, India, studying Transcendental Meditation. The title of the song is a tribute to Chuck Berrys Back in the U.S.A. while the chorus and background vocals pay homage to the Beach Boys California Girls. Mike Love of the Beach Boys also attended the retreat in Rishikesh at the same time and he has stated in interviews that, in order to make the song sound more like a Beach Boys number, he encouraged McCartney to talk about the girls all around Russia, the Ukraine and Georgia in the lyrics. In 2013, Love noted, I was at the breakfast table when Paul McCartney came down with his acoustic guitar playing Back in the U.S.S.R.. I said, You ought to put something in about all the girls around Russia, and he did. The song also contains an allusion to Hoagy Carmichaels and Stuart Gorrells Georgia on My Mind. McCartney sings about the female population of the Soviet Republic of Georgia (and Georgias always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind) right after the Ukraine girls and Moscow girls. McCartney thought that when he listened to the Beach Boys, it sounded like California, so he decided to write a song that sounded like the U.S.S.R. The title was inspired in part by the Im Backing Britain campaign that had been endorsed by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. It has been suggested that McCartney twisted that into Im back in (backin) the U.S.S.R. In his 1984 interview with Playboy, McCartney said: I wrote that as a kind of Beach Boys parody. And Back in the USA was a Chuck Berry song, so it kinda took off from there. I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know? It was also hands across the water, which Im still conscious of. Cause they like us out there, even though the bosses in the Kremlin may not. The kids from there do. And that to me is very important for the future of the race. Back in the U.S.S.R. was released by Parlophone as a single in the UK in 1976. It featured the song Twist and Shout on Side B. It has since been released as a single backed with Dont Pass Me By. During the 1960s, The Beatles were officially derided in the USSR as the belch of Western culture and in the 1980s McCartney was refused permission to play there.[ According to The Moscow Times, when McCartney finally got to play the song at his Back in the World tour in Moscows Red Square in May 2003 at the age of 60 the crowd went wild. When asked about the song before the concert McCartney said he had known little about the Soviet Union when he wrote it. It was a mystical land then, he said. Its nice to see the reality. I always suspected that people had big hearts. Now I know thats true. Finally we got to do that one here, he said after the song. youtube/watch?v=kHD5nd3QLTg
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 11:00:01 +0000
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