This song’s title is an adjective from дембель — a demobilized soldier. The irony, apparently, is that the speaker in the song has been “demobilized” by death in battle

“A Song of Unrequited Love for the Motherland” is a classic album by the group Ноль (Zero), featuring a distinctively Russian version of rock music

Although I don’t normally write about contemporary music on this blog, this Belarusian band deserves a mention, as a delightful throwback to Soviet new wave / post-punk.

Here’s a classic anti-war song from ДДТ, written in 1980 in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which dragged on from 1979 till 1989.

Your father is a fascist! / Don’t give me that look, I know for certain — / He’s a fascist, plain and simple!

You remember — I used to know myself; / My footprints lay like shackles. / I lived certain that I was right, / But now the snow has fallen, and again I don’t know who I am.

Here’s the table where I drank; here’s the whiskey on the rocks; / The drink turned to dust, the table was donated to a museum.

Though this blog focuses on the late Soviet rock scene in Russia, I thought it might be of interest to glance at the scene in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Okudzhava was one of the most prominent Russian “bards.” I’ll be posting some of his best-known songs, and some personal favorites, here. Not to be missed!

At night the store windows / Dazzle with their light. / Meanwhile children weep atop piles of garbage.

I’m in a bad, nihilistic mood today, so I thought… why not teach students some bad words? The result is a very short introduction to Russian мат.

I thank you for this gift: / The ability to sleep and see dreams; / Dreams of something greater.

How many years did you wander the world? / How long were you gone from your native door? / You went far away and remained there forever. / Lord, take up his soul.

Smoke in the sky, smoke on the earth, / Cars instead of people; / Dead fish in a dried-up river, / The reeking heat of the desert.

Let’s dig apart the snow / And find at least one dream / We’ll bring it home / And let it stay with us until spring, / And then we’ll release from the balcony — Let it fly.

I’ve been wounded with a radiant arrow; I cannot be healed. / I’ve been wounded in the heart; what more could I wish for?

A wonderful song from an extremely well-known Soviet movie about a factory worker who falls in love with his evening-school teacher.

This song, from a collection of covers by Civil Defense entitled Звездопад (Starfall), is Yegor Letov’s rendition of a Soviet classic sung by Edita Piekha. Sung by Letov, the song takes on a new dimension of bitter irony.

I’m looking for people like me, / Crazy and weird, / Crazy and sick. / And when I find them / We’re getting out of here / We’re heading out into the night / We’re leaving the zoo!

This song’s opening line — how many unwritten songs remain? — is a haunting one, particularly since the cuckoo bird, to whom these lines are addressed, was held by folk belief to herald bad news, particularly one’s looming death.