Almendra Podcast · Klaus Meine · Scorpions
"It's always better to sing together
than to shoot at each other"
Klaus Meine in conversation
Episode with Klaus Meine — Wind of Change, music as a bridge, 60 years of Scorpions
▶ Listen to the episodeKlaus Meine, lead singer of the Scorpions, in the Almendra podcast: about Wind of Change and the summer of 1989 in Moscow, the decision to rewrite the song after Russia's invasion of Ukraine — and the question of whether music changes more than politics.
Some songs grow larger than the moment that created them. Wind of Change by the Scorpions is one of them. Released in 1990, it became the anthem of a turning point in history — and remains so today: over one billion plays on YouTube, one of the very few songs from Europe to reach that mark. Klaus Meine, the band's singer and lyricist, wrote it. And in 2022, he rewrote it.
The conversation for Almendra starts with a simple request: can you whistle for a moment? Klaus Meine can. He briefly wets his lips and plays the most recognisable melody in German rock history. Then we talk about everything behind it.
"The best songs are born when they come from deep inside you and simply express what you feel, what you sense and what you've lived through yourself."
Moscow 1989: A Russian Woodstock
The story begins in 1988. The Scorpions played ten concerts in Leningrad — among the first Western bands ever to perform in the Soviet Union. A year later came the Moscow Music Peace Festival. Hundreds of thousands of fans in the stadium, soldiers serving as security — who took off their jackets and threw their caps in the air the moment the band walked on stage. Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe. And right in the middle of it: a band from Hanover, whose parents had been in Russia during the Second World War.
"Our parents came with tanks — we come with guitars," Meine says. The feeling he brought back from that trip, he compressed into a song. The whistling wasn't a musical device — it was improvisation. He simply didn't have a guitar to hand.
"Did you ever think that we could be so close, like brothers? — That was the feeling after all those years of the Cold War."
Nobody planned for the song to become an anthem. "At first, it was just one song among many for our album Crazy World," Meine says. What set it apart from the other songs of that moment: for the American bands, Moscow was a gig. For the Scorpions, it was something else — it was history.
2022: When the Song Could No Longer Be Sung Without Weight
In February 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the band was in Las Vegas working on their setlist. Wind of Change was on it — as always. And then the question Klaus Meine could no longer push aside: could you really sing the lines "I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park" with images from Ukraine running through the news every evening?
The answer was no. Either drop the song entirely — or rewrite the lines. Meine chose the second option. The new lyrics express solidarity with Ukraine. The band stood behind the decision.
"When the situation changes so fundamentally and you see so many people dying every day in a senseless war — you can no longer sing a song like that without it carrying that weight."
The audience's response was the same everywhere: understanding. Fans sang the new lyrics along with them. Criticism came too — from those who considered the iconic original lines untouchable. Meine's answer: a song born from a real experience must also be able to respond to a changed reality.
Are the Scorpions a Political Band?
Klaus Meine would say: no. And at the same time — Wind of Change wasn't their first political song. As far back as 1984, on the album Love at First Sting, he had written a song called Crossfire — about the feeling of standing between the Eastern and Western blocs and hoping for peace. Forty years later, on their anniversary tour, they played it live for the first time. It fitted again.
The question that surfaces in the conversation is an older one: can you make music for a large audience without being political? Meine is honest about it. A band is not a solo artist. Five people have to stand behind a statement. That makes it harder — and when it works anyway, more solid.
"You can't plan something like that. No amount of marketing helps. And you can't repeat it either."
Music as a Language Everyone Understands
What Meine keeps coming back to is less a political programme than a physical experience: standing in front of the stage, people from Tel Aviv and from Beirut singing the same songs with the same emotions. The news shows a different world that same evening. In the concert, for two hours, they are together.
He calls this "naive" himself. But he doesn't mean it as a put-down. It is perhaps the one thing a band that has been making music for 60 years can genuinely offer: the moment when divisions no longer apply.
"It's always better to sing together than to shoot at each other."
These sentences sound simple. But they come from someone who played in Leningrad when that still seemed impossible, who stood in a Moscow stadium in 1989 as soldiers took off their jackets — and who rewrote a song in 2022 because he refused to let it tell a lie.
60 Years of Scorpions: What Holds a Band Together?
Rudolf Schenker founded the Scorpions in 1965. Klaus Meine joined a few years later. What has kept the band together over six decades is, by Meine's account, not a formula but friendship — and a productive tension between two very different people: Schenker, the rock guitarist with an instinct for riffs. Meine, the romantic, who owns the ballads.
The fact that they were barely noticed in Germany in their early years, while the Neue Deutsche Welle dominated the charts, pushed them outward early: to Belgium, to Japan, to the United States. They sold out Madison Square Garden when nobody at home was listening. Belgium, Meine says, played a particular role — clubs in Namur, in Liège, good reviews, a first sense of validation.
"As Germans we had nothing to be proud of — so we went looking for recognition abroad."
Three Things That Stayed With Us
- A song can't be more than the moment it came from. Wind of Change became what it is because it emerged from a real experience — not because anyone set out to write an anthem. That can't be repeated or planned.
- Taking a position costs something. The decision to rewrite the song in 2022 wasn't easy. It drew criticism. And it was still the only possible choice.
- Sometimes a look is enough. Meine describes learning that you don't need a massive production to reach people. Eye contact. Connection. That doesn't translate into any setlist.
Links & sources
Listen to the full conversation — on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer and Amazon Music.
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