Red Army Blues

When I left my home and my family,
My mother said to me:
“Son, it's not how many Germans you kill that counts,
that's how many people you set free”.
So I packed my bags and I brushed my cap,
And I walked out into the world.
Seventeen years old, never kissed a girl.

I took the train to Voronezh –
That was as far as it would go,
Exchanged my sacks for a uniform,
Bit my lip against the snow.
I prayed for Mother Russia
In the summer of '43
And as we drove the Germans back,
I really believed God was listening to me.

Then we howled into Berlin,
Tore the smoking buildings down,
Raised the Red Flag high,
Burnt the Reichstag brown.
I saw my first American man
And he looked a lot like me.
He had the same kind of farmer's face,
Said he came from some place Called Hazard, Tennessee.

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.
We never came back home.
The train went north to the taiga.
We were stripped and marched in file
Up the Great Siberian road
For miles and miles and miles and miles,
Dressed in stripes and tatters
In a Gulag left to die,
All because Comrade Stalin feared
That we'd become too westernized!

I used to love my country.
I used to feel so young.
I used to believe that life
was the best song ever sung.
I would have died for my country
Back in 1945.
But now only one thing remains:
The brute will to survive.

Mike Scott, 1982

About this song

This song tells the story of a Russian soldier in World War II who is part of the conquering Red Army, which took Berlin in 1945 to defeat Hitler. When he returns home, instead of a hero's welcome, he is sent to a gulag to die, as Joseph Stalin fears he and his fellow soldiers, having mingled with Americans and other Europeans, will spread Western ideals.

The song is based on two books: The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer (1965) and The Diary Of Vikenty Angarov by Victor Muravin (1978). The first is from the perspective of a German soldier while the latter is an account of a Russian soldier:

These two books were very inspirational to me, and so I wrote the song. And I remember my girlfriend at the time was a huge Roxy Music fan, and one of her favorite songs was 'A Song For Europe,' in which Bryan Ferry sang, “Jamais, jamais, jamais” at the end of the song. So, I nicked that chord sequence, devised this lyric based on these two books[…]

I was highly inspired and every time I went to the end of a verse, I wanted a real killer line, like, “Seventeen years old, never kissed a girl”. That wasn't from the books. That wasn't from 'A Song for Europe.' That was from my heart. So, I wanted a killer line at the end of each verse to really pique the listener there.

~ Mike Scott

It's interesting to note that Mike Scott changed the lyrics on many occasions to adapt to his live audience. This way, in Germany, he won't say 'Germans' but 'Nazis' to mark the difference.

Also, in recent live versions (and on the official website), in the first verse, hte mother says: “It's the number of Germans you kill that counts, go set your country free”.

Mike Scott explains the reason why:

Years after this song was released I received a letter from a Russian man who said every word of the song was true except the line “It's not how many Germans you kill that counts, it's how many people you set free”. He told me “people went to the war to kill Germans”. I realize that when I wrote the song I allowed youthful idealism to distort the sense and truth of the song with an out of context pacifist sentiment. I have now changed it.

Here's another live version I couldn't make my mind whether to pick up over the one I finally decided for, in which Steve Wickham's magical violin replaces Anthony Thistlewaite's captivating saxophone.

There's also this remastered version with choirs that stir up your guts:

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