back

Wind in the sails or Aquarium’s new song

This week we are focusing on Russian music and we are happy to immerse ourselves in the new song by Boris Grebenshchikov and Aquarium.

There is a scene in the film ACCA, which directly describes the personality of BG - a question from the police to Victor Tsoi: "And where do you live? Address registration? Answer from the followers: he is a poet - he lives on earth. There is no address. “

Grebenshchikov's latest video, in which he and the musicians from the Aquarium, dressed as homeless people, play in a deserted side street in St. Petersburg, brought us back to the sketch from the film ACCA. They are playing an anthem - a combination of reggae, Indian music and Beatles tunes. They play and dream of the corsair sailing ship "Queen Anna's Revenge" by the pirate Blackbeard. They dream of freedom.

Today about the new poetic history of BG and Aquarium - a story in which the past, present and future are mixed into a puzzle, dough, Scrabble or whatever you want to call it. A story created with ease by musicians who use every free minute to play in parks and gardens. For free. Because creativity is something bigger than vanity. Like real modern bards.

Here another allegory is on the agenda and it is related to one of the characters in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. There, one of the main characters - the poet Ivan the Homeless, must lose everything to understand the truth. But, we cannot know how the thought of the poet BG is arranged at this moment…

Because every song by Boris Grebenshchikov and Aquarium is a puzzle. Such is also the last one. After the song came to life, the author has to explain what is behind the encrypted names and words. Here we have "mother Wikipedia" at hand with Facebook, and in the chorus BG tells us that he only wants Captain Blackbeard's sailing ship "Queen Anne's Revenge", wind in the sails, combined with mixture №5 - a mixture for smoking.

We open a big bracket - at the moment, there is an expedition to retrieve the sailing ship "Queen Anne's Revenge" sunk in Caribbean waters and here we touch reality. We note with a wink that in the movies "Pirates of the Caribbean" this beauty (because the ships in English are feminine nouns) plays a major role with fans.

Such thoughts and searches bring to light only a few of the verses of BG.

We love, no - we adore the mind of this modern poet, guru, even shaman (there are many epithets). His words here are again mixed in a way that requires a lot, really lot of attention. But each weighs like a stone in its place. With seeming ease and eternal rhythm BG puts the real problems of modernity in all its nuances on the table. And the truth hurts. It is no coincidence that the style of the video is homelessness to the sounds of a simple Indian chant. This is us today. Cynical, powerless, submissive. But we only have to look up at the sky to see that the world is light.

And for the finale, another quote from the lyrics of the song - a quote from the wandering mystic Grigory Skovoroda: "The world tried to catch me, but never caught me.” As BG himself says - there is no better explanation to life.

Every time BG manages to look far beyond reality, always to describe it with the right words and to intrigue our thoughts in a balanced and at the same time shocking way.

Today a video for good mood, but also reflection, which we will listen to again and again.

Footnote: We still go back to our meeting with BG and Aquarium in Kiev years ago and the waiting at the airport for the return flight with the musicians from Aquarium - the great Alexander Titov (part of the KINO) and the Irish flutist Brian Finnegan. Everyone on our way home.

back