St. Petersburg

Pro-Glastnost jangle pop

Faux Comrades,

1984.

What an amazing year.

Though Ronald Raygun was president, Gweorge Orwell’s full-on dystopian future hadn’t come to fruition.

I was 14 going on 15.

I spent most of the summer in John Klun’s backyard playing catch and kick the can.¹

There was a boombox and 3 cassettes played on repeat: “Diver Down” by Van Halen, “Back in Black” by AC/DC and Led Zeppelin “IV.”²

The Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics which took place in Los Angeles that year.³

As luck would have it, McDonald’s ran a contest that summer— kind of a monopoly type game, where whenever the US won a gold medal, you would win another item, which would also have a game piece on it.

Since no Communists showed up for the games, America dominated to the gold medal race.

Basically, you could buy an extra value meal at the beginning of the summer and you didn’t have to buy another thing all summer long because the Americans kept winning gold medals.

At the same time, Coca-Cola started running contests where you could look in the bottom of a can and see if you won another six pack.⁴

I distinctly remember sitting in the Klun basement watching TV⁵ with a six pack of Coca-Cola on the table next to me. We each had our own six pack and we were each gonna win another six pack or a two liter.⁶

It was a time of abundance.

I was deeply in love with Mary Lou Retton, the American gymnast who won so many gold medals, but that’s a story for another time.

In 1985, the mood changed.

Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union.

By 1986, the Soviet Union had started talking about something called Glastnost.

Gorbachev was acknowledging that things were bad in the U.S.S.R. and he wanted to “open things up” to improve the country.

I was kind of bummed that the Soviets had boycotted The Olympics in 1984, even though it had meant tons of free McDonald’s for little Faux Jean.

So when Gorbachev started this Glastnost/Perestroika thing, I was all for it.

Why did the Soviets have to be our enemies? They’re just like us, right?

It was in that spirit of thinking that I wrote today’s song addition to the “Mixed Up Files.”

I want to go down to St. Petersburg.

I wrote this song in the 1980s.

This song was ten years old when I made this recording 25 years ago.

masking tape on green cassette that holds this song.

And the recording is a complete mess.

You can hear the tape is deteriorating, some vocals are out of tune, the timing is whack.

And yet, and yet, I feel compelled to share it with you today.

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

Faux Jean

Here are the lyrics:

I wanna go down to St Petersburg
'Cause they changed their name and oh
so many of their ways-ay-ay-ays

You say that I am lost
You say that I merely go against the grain
Tell me what is wrong with that
If the grain is spoiled anyways-ay-ay-ays

Songs, songs, songs.

someday there will be peace.

1. I remember looking up onto the roof of John’s house one day and his brother Gene was up there erecting an antenna so he could better communicate with people on his CB radio in the basement.

2. Maybe there was some Foreigner and/or Sammy Hagar in there.

3. The U.S. had boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

4. It’s almost like they were trying to turn us into addicts.

5. Probably watching “Kung Fu” or “Dukes of Hazzard.”

6. I am grateful that I did not become obese.