New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe recently launched a podcast titled Wind of Change. The podcast explores the possibility that Scorpions' 1990 hit "Wind of Change" was written by the CIA as a form of cold war propaganda. So what does Scorpions vocalist and songwriter Klaus Meine think of the rumor? He told Trunk Nation that it's simply not true.
"Earlier this year, I did an interview. I think his name was Patrick Keefe. He came all the way from New York City over here to Germany for an interview with me. And Matthias [Jabs, guitar] did a phoner later, I guess. And it was about the Moscow Music Peace Festival, about 'Wind Of Change', but this is what this interview was all about. He used to write for printouts like New Yorker and stuff — he's a great guy, and very sympathetic and a really nice guy. And in the middle of the interview, he goes, like, 'Klaus, you ever heard the story that 'Wind Of Change' was written by the CIA?' And I cracked up laughing — I totally cracked up laughing. I said to him, 'So, my friend, you think you make an interview with a songwriter or you think you make an interview with a spy?' [Laughs] It was pretty bizarre. And then I learned the story. This was all about the podcast that would come out in May, which is now.
"Those guys, they're very professional and very creative, and the way they put it [together], it feels like a Netflix series, right? That's what it is. It's a podcast, and there will be a lot of people who will get into this. It's a fascinating idea, and it's an entertaining idea, but it's not true at all."
Meine later added that he though Keefe was originally joking when he started asking about the song.
"But when he told me about the CIA, I realized that he was very serious about it, and he [spent] some serious time to get to this point and, at the end of the day, to even make an interview with the songwriter of 'Wind Of Change'. I thought it was very amusing, and I just cracked up laughing. It's a very entertaining and really crazy story, but, like I said, it's not true at all. Like you American guys would say, it's fake news."
Check out the podcast here.
