That was just so strange. I wonder why the army’s choir would be involved in such a distinctly American song. I mean, I can see a love song or some song about how great it is to rock out, but that song is just so American. Weird.
They did a good job, though.
On an institutional level, the Red Army Choir likely remembers the propaganda coup it scored touring the West during the height of the Cold War while performing “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” (It was a crowd favorite). On a professional level, they’ll perform anything put to sheet music, and enjoy proving that they can (language barrier, etc., notwithstanding).
The Leningrad Cowboys is a Finnish rock band famous for its humorous songs, ludicrous hairstyles and concerts featuring the Russian military band Alexandrov ensemble.
The band was an invention of the Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki, appearing as a fictional band in his 1989 film Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The fictional band, however, was made up of Sakke Järvenpää and Mato Valtonen, members of a real Finnish band the Sleepy Sleepers with some additional musicians. In the film, they are joined by Nicky Tesco, former lead member of the UK punk rock band, The Members.
After the film, the band took on a life of its own, recording music, making videos and giving concerts. The band appeared in two other Aki Kaurismäki films, the Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994) and the Total Balalaika Show (1994), which is a film of a concert performed by the band and the full 160-member Alexandrov ensemble in Helsinki, Finland in June 1993. Kaurismäki also wrote and directed two videos featuring the band: their cover of the 60’s folk standard Those Were The Days (1992) and Thru The Wire (also featuring Tesco) (1992).
In 1994, the band appeared together with 70 members of the Alexandrov ensemble at the 11th annual MTV Music Awards, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, where they sang the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic Sweet Home Alabama. The show was seen by an estimated 250 million people worldwide. That same year, the band and ensemble again joined forces for the “Nokia Balalaika Show”, a concert held in Berlin. In 1998 they featured in the film L.A. Without a Map.
Currently, the band has 11 Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, are performed in English and have themes such as vodka, tractors, rockets, and Genghis Khan, as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all presented with lots of humour.