So with the present situation in The Ukraine, I thought it would be a good time to list some relevant music.
Regular readers will know that my favourite band of all time is Barclay James Harvest. They were/are not a particularly political band but occasionally did make a statement. Bass player Les Holroyd wrote a song entitled "Kiev" which was inspired by the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986, when an accident at a nuclear power station in the then Soviet Union killed many and contaminated a wide area of the Ukraine, close to Kiev. The song is a lament for the people of the area, who were innocent victims.
It does seem prescient to the current situation with the chorus as follows:
Kiev, a candle with a flame
You'll never be the same
Our hearts go out to you
And what you're going through
They've thrown away your past
Just like an empty glass
Into the fire
The first verse is also relevant to today:
My friends it's not what you were famous for
But now the whole world's watching you
If we could help you then you know we would
But we don't know just what to do
There's a song by the prog rock group Renaissance (another favourite of mine) entitled Mother Russia. The song is a tribute to Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the lyrics are based on his novel about Soviet repression One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The song comes from 1974 but still seems relevant
Punished for his written thoughts
Starving for his fame
Working blindly, building blocks
Number for a name his blood flows frozen to the snow
Then there's Pictures at an Exhibition. You can take the original by Russian composer Mussorgsky or the more modern and over the top version by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The final movement is translated as The Great Gates of Kiev.
If you want a different take on the latest position, try Billy Joel's fantastic Leningrad which was written during the Cold War. The song takes the theme of the power of the ordinary person irrespective of whether they are American or Russian. It is a great song of hope.
Other songs of varied quality that you might like to seek out if you don't already know them include the following:
Roads to Moscow by Al Stewart which is also about Solzhenitsyn and has the words:
And all that i ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze.
Red Army Blues by the Waterboys which is about the perils of being a soldier under Stalin and has the following lyrics:
When the war was over
my discharge papers came
Me and twenty hundred others
went to Stettiner for the train
"Kiev!" said the Commissar
"from there your own way home"
But I never got to Kiev
And there are many many more. It's best at this point to ignore the lyrics of The Beatles Back in the USSR. One of the strangest songs about Ukraine is by the Bee Gees, although I'm never sure that it's about the Ukraine. It comes from a cult album "Odessa" and is the title song. This one is about a shipwreck and the lyrics are rather strange to say the least.
Treasure, you know the neighbours that live next door
They haven't got their dog anymore
Freezing, sailing around in the North Atlantic
Can't seem to leave the sea anymore
I just can't understand why you just moved to Finland
You love that Vicar more then words can say
Ask him to pray that I won't melt away
And I'll see your face again
I told you it was strange. I would love to hear from anyone else who has a Ukrainian themed song.
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Today's batch of photographs are more from our latest stay in North Norfolk and feature Baconsthorpe Church and the surrounding village which I wrote about yesterday.