The Waterboys - Red Army Blues

"Red Army Blues" is a first person account of a young Soviet soldier who fights in World War II and finally in the battle of Berlin, and in turn is sent to the Gulag by a paranoid Stalin who thought all Soviet soldiers had been too "westernized" by this experience. Mike Scott wrote the song based upon a book called The Diary Of Vikenty Angorov. It first appeared as a B-side on the 12" single for "December" from their debut album, and then turned up on the second Waterboys album in 1984, A Pagan Place.

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