Songs by Bulat Okudzhava

About Okudzhava

At first glance his songs are similar in content to the majority of the songs permitted by the authorites. The poet never suspected that the reaction to this foray into the sphere of song would be so sharp and decisive. The reaction was completely different on the part of those who had no professional ties to the Soviet song or Soviet ideology. Okudzhava's songs found a much more receptive audience. People found in them what they had longed for for more than a decade. They were songs full of vitality and deep meaning, songs consisting not of gaudy melodies but of words written by a great poet who had something to say to his contemporaries.

Clearly, somewhere within me the desire, the bent for singing was hidden, because before I began to sing songs, I had already written several poems in the form suitable for that genre. They already contained some kind of inner melody.- B. S. Okudzhava