"Wind of Change" is a song by German rock band Scorpions, recorded for their eleventh studio album Crazy World (1990).

"Wind of Change" was released as the album's third single on 21 January 1991 and became a worldwide hit, just after the failed coup that would eventually lead to the end of the Soviet Union.

The band presented a gold record and $70,000 of royalties from the single to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, with Soviet news sources claiming the money would be allocated to children's hospitals.

[4] Klaus Meine said in an interview that the time 1988/1989 in the Soviet Union was characterized by the mood that the Cold War was coming to an end, the music was the unifying factor for the people.

[6] Meine was inspired by his participation in the Moscow Music Peace Festival on 13 August 1989, at Lenin Stadium, where the Scorpions performed in front of about 300,000 fans:[1][7] Die Idee dazu ist mir in der U.d.S.S.R.

gekommen, als ich in einer Sommernacht im Gorki Park Center saß und auf die Moskwa geblickt habe.

Meine referred to the 'SNC' cultural center, opened by Stas Namin inside Moscow's Gorky Park without any official permission, where Russian and international musicians as well as progressive poets, artists and designers met in a free, innovative atmosphere.

[8] The lyrics celebrate glasnost in the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and speak of hope at a time when tense conditions had arisen due to the fall of Communist-run governments among Eastern Bloc nations beginning in 1989.

[14][15] In December 2020, it was reported that a further investigation of the song's origins based on the claims from the podcast would be adapted into a series for Hulu directed by Alex Karpovsky.