In 1959, Chuck Berry had a hit with a song called Back in the USA<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> a rock ‘n roll propelled love anthem to America. The lyrics went:<\/p>\n Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today \u2026 New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you .\u2026 Well, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A. Just about a decade later, in November 1968, the Beatles led off their White Album with a tongue-in-cheek riff on the East-West divide going on at the time, a track called Back in the USSR<\/em><\/a>, a shout-out to Chuck Berry.<\/p>\n The Beatles lyrics went:<\/p>\n \u2026 back in the USSR Back in the US Then the Beatles segued into a spoof of the Beach Boys – California Girls<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n … Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out And then back to:<\/p>\n \u2026 I’m back in the USSR The Beatles brought many new Russian fans on board with Back in the USSR<\/em>, among them a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the very same thug now directing genocide against the people of Ukraine. But the Beatles were just messing around. Back in the USSR<\/em> was not a love anthem to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had just invaded Czechoslovakia<\/a> in August of that same year, 1968, and the Beatles were well aware of that. The song had its base in irony.<\/p>\n In a changed world, Paul McCartney later sang the song at a concert in Moscow\u2019s Red Square in 2003<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and Putin was in attendance. At that Red Square concert, everywhere you looked Moscovites were rockin\u2019 and rollin,\u2019 happy as hell that they were being acknowledged by McCartney. Putin was deadpan, perhaps already fixated on how he might recreate the empire that the Beatles had satirized and that McCartney was now flaunting right in front of him in Moscow. Putin was not amused by the irony.<\/p>\n
\nWe touched ground on an international runway<\/em><\/p>\n
\nDetroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge
\nLet alone just to be at my home back in ol’ St. Lou<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYes, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A.
\nAnything you want, we got right here in the U.S.A.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou don’t know how lucky you are, boy<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBack in the US
\nBack in the USSR<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThey leave the west behind
\nAnd Moscow girls make me sing and shout<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou don’t know how lucky you are, boys
\nBack in the USSR<\/p>\n