Bounding Ballads But No Beatles In Russia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31275, 23 January 1967, Page 2

Bounding Ballads But No Beatles In Russia

(N .Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW. A love-song entitled “The Atomic Age”, recently won second prize in a Russian popular song festival.

A bounding ballad with jazz - band backing, it was written by Inna Kashezhova, a 22-year-old poetess and student of literature. It goes like this: In the atomic age. There are not enough calculating machines To answer the one question: Do you love me or not? Yes or no the words of love. What will yon say yes or no? - Even in the atomic age People are still the same, Ana through the music of the flying spaceships Ring out those same words: yes or no? Miss Kashezhova’s song with its concentration on the eternal problems of love between boy and girl faces fierce competition in official popularity. A composition frequently heard on Soviet radio recently is “My Own Dear Factory,” a slow ballad, complete with orchestrated accordion accompaniment in which the singer tells of his affection for “the factory I have known since childhood.”

Other songs often heard on the radib are compositions inspired by the Young Communist League, praising the loyalty and social consciousness of youth taking part in the building of communism. There is no real way of knowing which of these songs achieve true popularity, for there are no pop-charts, and no record magazines, and the occasional radio request programme concentrates on soldiers’ requests, which more often than not turn out to be military songs. But there is no reason to believe that young Russians are any less prone to the lure of a love ballad such as “The Atomic Age” than their Western counterparts.

Although beat music is frowned on and the Soviet Union has no equivalent of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys, records of Western groups are a must for any swinging party in Moscow. Many young Russians listen to Western Russianlanguage radio stations, especially the British Broadcasting Corporation which broadcasts a regular pop request programme for its Soviet fans. Tape-recordings of these broadcasts are passed on from friend to friend, recorded and

re-recorded until much of the original quality of the sound, often poor to start with, is lost. The official attitude to this is quite clear. One Russian newspaper recently called the Beatles “Four stupid youths . . . who help the spiritual devastation and moral depravity of young people.” Until recently there appeared to be a similar attitude to one of the Soviet Union’s best-known ballad singers, the middle-aged poetnovelist, Bulat Okudzhava, who sjngs his simple but rather sad compositions to the accompaniment of his own guitar. His impromptu concerts—in university hostels, at parties, by log fires, at youth camps—were also taperecorded and passed round

until it seemed that even' young owner of a recorder in Moscow had a tape of his songs. But the State recording companies, more concerned with protecting youth from “harmful influences” than with making money by selling them what they want, ignored his existence until very recently. • Now there is at least one recording of four of his more popular songs, not sung by him, and lacking the inimitable touch which only the composer can give. Among the girl singers is Tamara Miansarova, who enjoyed a brief vogue recently when her song about an unlucky black cat caught the ear of even the conservative and anonymous Moscow radio disc jockeys.