The third time has to be the charm. Or so I hope.
This is the third version of my original volume 2 mixtape dedicated to the Cold War era of international broadcasting on shortwave. You can find the playlist below, here's a preview: This mixtape features interval signals from the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio Berlin International, Radio Tirana, Radio Bucharest, Radio Moscow, Radio Peking (not Beijing), among others. In addition, the mixtape offers music by Gene Autry, Paul Jabara, the Drifters, R.E.M., Falco, Esquivel, Georgy Garanian and the Melodiya Jazz Ensemble, and more.
Why the fascination with the Soviet and Communist era? No, I am not a budding, full bloom, or wilted Communist. While I can see the merits of a Socialist approach to economy, government, and society, the Soviet system had significant human, environmental, and economic costs. Let's put it this way: If you have to keep people behind an iron curtain or a Berlin Wall to make sure they benefit from and "enjoy" what you've planned for them, you might have already failed to sell the idea to your followers.
Then again, Capitalism continues to be an ugly business, also having enormous human, environmental, and economic costs, so I can fathom some of the appeal of alternative approaches to living and working.
During the 1970s and 1980s, when I did most of my shortwave listening, the Cold War was hot and heavy-handed, and the Soviet Bloc stations were all over the airwaves, as were the Chinese Communists and their satellites and, lest we forget, the U.S. and its entourage (e.g., Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, et al.) So what I heard then--and I heard a lot because I often listened day and night, whenever I could and as often as I could--has stayed with me through the years.
Thus there's some nostalgia afoot here, as well as romance for an era lost. That era was not always wonderful, at least in the American mind, but it wasn't without its merits, its charms, and its aficionados. I'm not alone in this view; think of the movie Goodbye Lenin, for example, or the book Comrade Rockstar, by Reggie Nadelson, about the life and times of American-East German rockstar Dean Reed.
You'll hear a fine example of that loss in the last track in this mixtape, the final broadcast of Radio Berlin International, a broadcast I actually happened to hear by accident back in 1990. It's a transmission that still offers me a slight shiver, a haunting if you will. Because that broadcast feels a bit like me--it's late, we both feel past our prime, on the verge of being made redundant, but wanting to hold on as long as we can to a rapidly disintegrating world.
And we want to tell someone about what it was like and what is disappearing. Anyone who will listen really, even though we're never sure anyone is paying attention.
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The playlist
- Voice of America - Closing and signature tune
- Gene Autry - "Yankee Doodle Dandy"
- Paul Jabara - "Yankee Doodle Dandy"
- Radio Free Europe - TV commercial audio from the early 1970s
- The Drifters - "On Broadway"
- R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe"
- Swiss Broadcasting Corporation - Interval signal, announcement, and time signal
- Falco - "Vienna Calling"
- ORF External Service - Interval signal and opening
- Esquivel - "Blue Danube"
- Deutsche Welle - Interval signal
- Radio Berlin International - Interval signal
- Das Kapital - Auferstanden aus Ruinen
- Radio Tirana - Interval signal
- Radio Budapest - Interval signal
- Radio Polonia - Interval signal and announcement
- Frederic Chopin - Etude for piano no. 12, op. 10 (Revolutionary Etude)
- Unknown - "Kupredu, leva, zpatky ni krok" ("Forward, Left . . .")
- Radio Sofia - Interval signal and opening
- Radio Bucharest - Interval signal and opening
- Radio Station Peace and Progress - Interval signal, opening, and announcement
- Radio Moscow - Interval signal
- Georgy Garanian and the Melodiya Jazz Ensemble - "Moscow Nights (Evenings in Moscow)"
- The Red Army Choir - "Moscow Nights (Evenings in Moscow)"
- Radio Peking - Interval signal and announcement
- The East Is Red Choir - "The East Is Red"
- Monkey - "March of the Volunteers"
- Arbeit - "Die Internationale"
- Radio Berlin International - Excerpt from final English-language broadcast, 2 October 1990
