"Back in the U.S.S.R." is a song by the English rock band the Beatles and the first track of the 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the "White Album"). Written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, the song is a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." and the Beach Boys' "California Girls". The lyrics subvert Berry's patriotic sentiments about the United States, as the narrator expresses relief upon returning home to the Soviet Union, formally the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The Beatles recorded "Back in the U.S.S.R." as a three-piece after Ringo Starr temporarily left the group, in protest at McCartney's criticism of his drumming and the tensions that typified the sessions for the White Album. Instead, the other Beatles created a composite drum track from numerous takes. McCartney's singing was based on Jerry Lee Lewis, while the bridge features a Beach Boys–style celebration of girls from various parts of the USSR. The song opens and closes with a tape loop of an aircraft landing on a runway.
Released three months after the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Beatles' sympathetic portrayal of the USSR prompted condemnation in the West from both the New Left and the political right. In 1976, backed by "Twist and Shout", it was issued as a single to promote the compilation album Rock 'n' Roll Music. It peaked at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart and number 11 in Ireland. In 2003, McCartney performed the song in Moscow's Red Square. Elton John and Billy Joel have also released versions recorded during concerts in Russia.
Background and inspiration
Paul McCartney began writing the song as "I'm Backing the UK", inspired by the "I'm Backing Britain" campaign, which had gained wide national support in January 1968, a month before the Beatles departed for India to undertake a course in Transcendental Meditation. According to author Ian MacDonald, McCartney altered the title to "I'm Backing the USSR" and then, drawing on Chuck Berry's 1959 hit song "Back in the U.S.A.", arrived at the song's eventual title. Donovan, the Scottish singer-songwriter who joined the Beatles in India, said that "Back in the U.S.S.R." was one of the "funny little ditties" that McCartney regularly played at the ashram, adding that "of course, melodious ballads just poured out of him".
In a November 1968 interview for Radio Luxembourg, McCartney said the song was inspired by Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." and was written from the point of view of a Russian spy returning home to the USSR after an extended mission in the United States. Mike Love of the Beach Boys, another student at the meditation retreat, recalled McCartney playing "Back in the U.S.S.R." on acoustic guitar over breakfast in Rishikesh, at which point he suggested to McCartney that the bridge section should focus on the "girls" in Russia, in the style of the Beach Boys' "California Girls". In his 1984 interview with Playboy magazine, McCartney said he wrote it as "a kind of Beach Boys parody" based around "Back in the U.S.A." He added: I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know? It was also hands across the water, which I'm still conscious of. 'Cause they like us out there [in Soviet Russia], even though the bosses in the Kremlin may not.
In his lyrics, McCartney transposed the patriotism of Berry's song into a Soviet context. He said that he intended it to be a "spoof" on the typical American international traveller's contention that "it's just so much better back home" and their yearning for the comforts of their homeland. McCartney said that, despite the lack of luxuries in the USSR, his Soviet traveller would "still be every bit as proud [of his home country] as an American would be". According to author Michael Gray, "Back in the U.S.S.R." was the Beatles' sardonic comment on Berry's idealised Americana, which had become "deeply unfashionable" by the late 1960s.