Song of the Day 9/27: The Beatles, “Back in the USSR”

One one level it’s just a parody of American exceptionalism as espoused by Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys. But it doesn’t seem so funny when Russia flexes its military muscle.

At least that’s how some people felt when this appeared as the first track on the double-LP White Album, released in November 1968 — just a few months after the Soviet invasion of what was then Czechoslovakia.

Both Donovan and Mike Love recall Paul McCartney playing this at their ashram in India in February 1968. Donovan said it was one of his many “funny little ditties.” Love — insert eye-roll here — claims name-checking girls from different regions was his idea. The tune is played as a goof, but given America’s dark turn in 1968 it also carried a barb, and the band caught flak for it from Establishment types.

I suppose the barb points in a different direction now, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Russia to escape Putin’s attempted return to the good old USSR.

Fun trivia: The recording features only three of the Fab Four because Ringo walked out after Paul criticized his drumming.