Abubilla Music

Voices: Moscow, Vladimir Visotsky

Written by Moscow - Pavel

This is Abubilla Music on voices, providing some or our favourite Visotsky songs (and a couple influences) .  Pavel will jump in and correct us, but then he would have to write a blog wouldn’t he?

First, sources.   Here’s a great source on History of Russian Rock and on History of Samizdat Folk Songs.   We quickly decided to cover a couple songs from Poland as well, as the protest music spread throughout Soviet Union and Eastern Music.  Like Samizdat literature, Samizdat (essentially underground) music was a protest against the Soviet control of art and the government’s notion of social realism.  The idea was to tell it like it is and as a result the artists were driven underground and relentless persecuted as dissidents.   Vysotksy was a bit different though and while the Soviets never let him be pulished (his songs were spread around underground) they didn’t persecute him fully – and Russians celebrated his death, when he died during the Moscow Olympics in 1980.  So with that, here’s a couple songs and the places these songs take you as you explore:

1.  Vladimir Vysotsky (voice of Russian samizdat), Comrade Stalin:

2. Jacek Kaczmarski (Considered the Voice of Solidarity Movement), Mury.  He based a lot of his work on Visotsky, who became the grandfarther of Solidarity in a way.

Covered by Habukuk.   Vladimir was heavily influenced by Jacek who was playing similar protest songs.  Mury means ‘Walls.’

So Habukuk, who cover Walls above,  is a popular Polish Reggae band. So let’s included another song, which is a bit like UB40:

3.  Высоцкий – В сон мне желтые огни.  Absolutely love this:

4. Visotsky, I Don’t Love You

5.  Georges Brassens, Les Passantes.  They often compare Vladimir to Georges – so you can do…

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Well, there you go.

Jimmy