35 Years Ago Today

by

Demolition of the Berlin Wall began.

On the 20th anniversary I wrote a parody of the Bowling for Soup song “1985” in honor of the collapse of European Communism. I seriously want someone to make a music video out of this.

Woo Hoo Hooooo!
Woo Hoo Hooooo!

Honecker built the wall
He thought that he had it all
Head of the GDR, oh
Wife’s in the Politburo
His dreams were smithereens
By October 16
He was the Number One man
What happened to his plan?

He was the head of party
He was the head of state
He shook his Commie fist
Dissidents he sealed their fates
His own SED
Is now the enemy
Miffed by his corrupt life
And nothing, has been…
All right since

Lech Walesa, and Havel
Way before Obama
There was Ronnie and Gorby
And Russians still in Hungary
The Commies from the old school
They think the change is way uncool
They’re all dissatisfied
With 19, 19, 1989

Woo Hoo Hooooo!
(1989)
Woo Hoo Hooooo!

Pozsgay read the Marxist classics
He knew every creed
“Class struggle,” “Labor theory”
“From ability to need”
But Hungary was whammed
Economy was jammed
Thought he’d try a hand
To come up with a new plan

Where’s the full stores
Like the ones in the West?
And what’s with those East German guys
And weekly unrest?
When did Polish dissidents
Get on the TV?
What ever happened
To Comintern, Five Year Plans
(In the streets were)

Walesa, and Havel
Way before Obama
There was Ronnie and Gorby
And Russians still in Hungary
The Commies from the old school
They think the change is way uncool
They’re all dissatisfied
With 19, 19, 1989

Woo Hoo Hooooo!

Ceaucescu hates these times
He wants to make it stop
“When did the Berlin Wall
Become a pile of rocks?
And tell me why did Prague
Surrender to that playwright?
Please make this stop
Stop, STOP”
[sound of rifle cocking]
“Please no more…”

Walesa, and Havel
Way before Obama
There was Ronnie and Gorby
And Russians still in Hungary
The Commies from the old school
They think the change is way uncool
They’re all dissatisfied
With 19, 19, 1989

Woo Hoo Hooooo!

Lech Walesa, and Havel
Way before Obama
There was Ronnie and Gorby
And Russians still in Hungary
The Commies from the old school
They think the change is way uncool
They’re all dissatisfied
With 19, 19, 1989

7 thoughts on “35 Years Ago Today”

  1. After 70 years and a hundred million dead, no sane person would have bet it would end in a whimper instead of rivers of blood.

  2. After 70 years and a hundred million dead, no sane person would have bet it would end in a whimper instead of rivers of blood
    We are indeed fortunate that the Soviet Union and its empire ended so peacefully.

    I had never heard of that song. I had stopped following pop music by the time it came out. I like the new lyrics.

    I grew up with too many Iron Curtain refugees and their children to consider the fall of the Berlin Wall a non-trivial event. In addition, I knew some Hungarian refugees from working in Latin America. One year in grad school I had a roommate whose father had been smuggled into West Berlin in the trunk of a car.

  3. Our current troubles are in large part because our domestic Left continues to believe that the Wrong Side, the Bad Guys, the Evil Empire, won the Cold War.

  5. Nice lyrics.

    I was in the US navy when the wall came down. I had expected to be killed by a Soviet antiship missile before my 21st birthday but then events saddled up.

    The change was very noticeable. When I enlisted the USN was very much a military organization preparing for war. The navy even had an expensive plan to upgrade decades-old ships to keep them combat effective.

    About the time the wall came down that changed. Numerous ships were decommissioned and we eventually sank many still useful ships as targets or gave them away.

    Good times, etc.

  6. Other things unimagined then is that 35 years on, the EU would be engaged Building Back Better. Political discourse is so much more civilized when critics of the government can be fined and imprisoned. Continuity of programs can be assured so much more simply by ignoring elections. To think we, in the U.S., have turned our back on all of this enlightenment and are regressing to the Dark Ages.

    Imagine all the strife we would have avoided if Roosevelt had prevailed on Churchill in 1941 to accept reality and accede to Herr Hitler’s requests. Maybe Kent and Dorset, since they were already practically part of Continental Europe. Since Herr Hitler must never feel in any way crowded or constrained, Britain’s foreign policy would, henceforth, be through Berlin. Just a few minor adjustments and concessions, in the name of World Peace.

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