About "Back In The USSR"

From the original Beatles Album "The Beatles - White Album" (1968)

PAUL 1968: "Chuck Berry once did a song called 'Back In The USA,' which is very American, very Chuck Berry. Very sort of, uhh... you know, you're serving in the army, and when I get back home I'm gonna kiss the ground. And you know-- Can't wait to get back to the States. And it's a very American sort of thing, I've always thought. So this one is like about... In my mind it's just about a spy who's been in America a long long time, you know, and he's picked up... And he's very American. But he gets back to the USSR, you know, and he's sort of saying, 'Leave it till tomorrow, honey, to disconnect the phone,' and all that. And 'Come here honey,' but with Russian women. It concerns the attributes of Russian women."

JOHN 1980: "Paul completely. I play the six-string bass on that."

PAUL 1984: "I wrote that as a kind of Beach Boys parody. And 'Back in the USA' was a Chuck Berry song, so it kinda took off from there. I just liked the idea of Georgia girls and talking about places like the Ukraine as if they were California, you know? It was also hands across the water, which I'm still conscious of. 'Cuz they like us out there, even though the bosses in the Kremlin may not. The kids do."

PAUL 1986: "I'm sure it pissed Ringo off when he couldn't quite get the drums to 'Back In The USSR,' and I sat in. It's very weird to know that you can do a thing someone else is having trouble with. If you go down and do it, just bluff right through it, you think, 'What the hell, at least I'm helping.' Then the paranoia comes in-- 'But I'm going to show him up!' I was very sensitive to that."

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