Blinken sings in Kyiv: “I don't feel like Satan, but I am…”

12:34 16.05.2024 •

Secretary of State Antony Blinken with a local band in Kyiv.
Photo: Reuters

Tuesday night in wartime Ukraine’s capital, not long before curfew, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken deployed a left-handed guitar in the service of supporting Kyiv in its fight.

Before Blinken became the top American diplomat, he was a serious rock guitarist — and along with a Ukrainian band, he played “Rockin’ in the Free World,” a 1989 song by Young, the Canadian American musician, for a packed basement music club, writes ‘The Washington Post’.

Blinken’s trip to the club, Barman Dictat, a music bar in central Kyiv that was built to double as a bunker in case of war, came at the end of a long day of meetings that was capped with a speech that set out Blinken’s vision for what a Ukrainian victory would look like.

Senior U.S. diplomats felt the music would still drive home the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine in its struggle against the Kremlin, one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the performance.

…The most interesting thing is that he chose a song with lyrics:

“There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign
on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can.”