Pussy Riot: "Putin Lights Up the Fires"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As we bid farewell to Sochi, to a Winter Olympics that in many ways was, disgustingly, a celebration of Putin's Russia, if not of the man himself, with Putin presiding over the whole thing like the tyrant he is, playing statesman and host when really he was just engaging in shameless self-aggrandizement, it makes sense to turn to Pussy Riot, the punk group that has become one of Putin's arch-nemeses, not least because members of the group were beaten and whipped by Putin's security forces in Sochi in a truly ugly and yet for some reason generally ignored incident, at least when compared to all the warm feelings about all that athletic achievement.

Last month we posted "Punk Prayer." Here's another of Pussy Riot's well-known songs, "Putin Lights Up the Fires," which takes on additional significance given the imposition of police rule in Sochi, the crackdown on dissent and difference that is central to Putin's tyranny, and of course the very real fires that were lighting up Kiev, with people dying, before Putin's puppet, Viktor Yanukovych, was kicked out of office (actually he fled, having been impeached by parliament) over the weekend, just as things were wrapping up in Sochi.

Here are some of the lyrics:

Putin is lighting the fires of revolution
He's bored and scared of sharing silence with the people
With every execution: the stench of rotten ash
With every long sentence: a wet dream

The country is going, the country is going into the streets boldly
The country is going, the country is going to bid farewell to the regime
The country is going, the country is going, like a feminist wedge
And Putin is going, Putin is going to say goodbye like a sheep

We can only hope so.

Here's a video montage for the song put together back in 2012 by The Guardian: