Songs by Bulat Okudzhava

About Okudzhava

Before Okudzhava, the Soviet song industry had virtually no competition from within the country. The state monopoly of songs seemed unshakable. Suddenly it was discovered that one person could compose a song and make it famous, without the Union of Composers, with its creativity sections and department of propaganda, without the help of popular singers, choirs and orchestras, without publishing houses, radio and television, film and record companies, editors and censors. It turned out that a talented poet, who had never had a lesson in musical composition, singing or guitar playing, possessing only native musicality, could make himself heard as no one had been heard in Russia for a long time.

The theme fo many of my poem-songs is love. For a long time we almost never sang about love... In protest against this falseness and... hypocrisy, I dared for the first time in many years to glorify woman... to fall bevore her on my knees. - B. S. Okudzhava