Posted
on March 29, 2014
[Sung
to the tune of Hey, Jude.]
Hey,
guys, don't listen to
The
Beatles' music –
It's
just so wrong.
Remember
our communist principles
Then
we can keep our nation-state strong...
Flash
forward 26 years...
[Sung
to the tune of Back in the USSR.]
Now
you can buy our records in a music store,
Buy
'em totally legit.
You
can listen to our songs most anywhere,
The
KGB will not throw a fit.
We
made it to the USSR;
You
know how lucky you are, boy,
Back
in the USSR!
On
this date in 1986, more than a decade after the Beatles had
ceased to exist as a band, the Soviet people could finally legally
buy their records.
But
that doesn't mean that Russians weren't listening to Beatles music
before then. The government took a hard line against the Beatles,
calling their music “capitalist pollution” and “ideologically
alien,” and calling the Beatles themselves “the bugs.” Still,
Beatles records were available on the black market.
And
when kids heard the music, according to British Cold War spy Leslie
Woodhead, they often thought, “The Kremlin told us this is evil
music, but it's not true. It's lovely music! Maybe they've been lying
to us about other things as well...”
Illegal
Beatles records cost a lot of rubles. Some Russians were willing to
pay as much as two weeks' salary for a Beatles album.
The
bootleggers discovered that music could be etched onto x-rays. The
enterprising lawbreakers bought old x-rays from Soviet hospitals, and
the music was pressed onto them using a specially-rigged record
player...and these disks sold for less than an actual vinyl record.
Can
you imagine listening to a floppy, see-through record that has a
picture of some stranger's ribcage or femur on it?
Of
course, if someone was caught with a bootlegged disk, and turned in
to the KGB—that person could be punished. Still, the people's
desire to listen to the Beatles' music was greater than their fear of
punishment, and bootlegging and smuggling flourished. Apparently even
some Soviet diplomats, Communist Party workers, and even KGB members
bought and listened to the banned music!
To
find out more about Beatles music in Soviet Russia, check out this BBC article or this Daily News article.
Or watch “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin” on video.
When
Paul McCartney wrote Back in the USSR, he had never
traveled there, and the Beatles obviously never performed there.
Still, Paul said that he'd heard on the down-low that the Beatles had
secret fans there. 
Some
Russian have said that the Beatles helped overthrow communism! This
point isn't ridiculous—the Beatles promoted a cultural revolution
that played a part in the ending of the USSR.
Also
on this date:
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ahead:
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out my Pinterest boards for:
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