Pineapple Street Studios / Crooked Media / Spotify
17 episodes listed below
Patrick Radden Keefe investigates whether the CIA secretly wrote a Scorpions hit.
Wind of Change follows a strange rumor about the Scorpions' ballad and the CIA. Around that question, it builds a larger investigation into pop culture, memory, and the political charge music can carry long after its moment has passed.
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Wind of Change is produced by Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media, and Spotify, and is built around a single question: did the CIA write the Scorpions' power ballad "Wind of Change" as propaganda aimed at the collapsing Soviet Union? Host and New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe narrates the investigation in long-form documentary style, weaving his own reporting process into the story rather than presenting a finished conclusion up front. Guests include Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine, who describes writing the song on a Yamaha keyboard in September 1989 and denies any CIA involvement, and retired CIA officer Jonna Mendez, who discusses the agency's disguise and covert-influence programs. The series draws on Cold War cultural history well beyond the Scorpions, covering CIA-backed tours by Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone, the smuggling of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago into the USSR, and the origins of the CIA's "Glomar" non-denial response. Recurring figures include Keefe's friend and source Michael Stender-Auerbach, who first relayed the CIA rumor, alongside named and pseudonymous former intelligence officers. Beyond the core eight-part narrative, the feed includes bonus episodes such as a Scorpions concert recorded as a Ukraine war fundraiser and on-air arguments between Keefe and producer Michael about how the series ended. It also carries promotional previews of other Crooked Media and Keefe-related projects, including Another Russia (on assassinated Putin critic Boris Nemtsov), Dreamtown (on the California city of Adelanto), and Keefe's true-crime book London Falling. The core audience is listeners interested in Cold War history, intelligence agencies, or music journalism, plus existing followers of Keefe's other investigative work. Production is narrative-documentary style, built from archival tape, interview audio, and Keefe's on-mic narration rather than a live co-host format.
Made for: Listeners interested in Cold War history, intelligence agencies, and music journalism who enjoy long-form investigative narrative podcasts.
What sets it apart: A single serialized investigation into one disputed song's origin, combining music history, CIA tradecraft, and firsthand interviews rather than a rotating slate of separate cases.
It’s 1990. The Berlin Wall just fell. The Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse. And the soundtrack to the revolution is one of the best selling songs of all time, the metal ballad “Wind of Change,” by the Scorpions. Decades later, journalist Patrick Radden Keefe heard a rumor: the song wasn’t written by the Scorpions. It was written by the CIA. This is his journey to find the truth. Wind of Change is an Original Series from Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media and Spotify.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
A patient investigation that tests a rock-and-roll conspiracy against the documented history of CIA involvement in culture.
Wind of Change takes a startling question seriously: could the CIA have helped create the Scorpions song tied to the end of the Cold War? Host Patrick Radden Keefe builds a serialized investigation from interviews, historical records, disputed recollections, and guarded…
One Scorpions whistle sends you chasing the CIA from Moscow to a Hanover conference room.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient civic true-crime setup about Adelanto, private prisons, local ambition, and a strange encounter at a campaign sign.
Adelanto opens on deep desert history, then narrows into the kind of civic trouble that feels almost too ordinary until the stakes start to show. The story moves from land taken, renamed, and sold into E. H.
A concert bonus turns into a sharp, uneasy look at how Wind of Change found new meaning during the war in Ukraine.
Wind of Change uses a Scorpions show at Long Island's UBS Arena to revisit a song that once seemed locked to the end of the Cold War, then suddenly found fresh force after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A tense hotel-room interview turns the Wind of Change rumor into a Cold War mystery built on memory, denial, and one stubborn question.
The chase narrows to an elegant hotel conference room in Hanover, where Klaus Meine is asked the question hanging over the whole strange story: could Wind of Change have been touched by the CIA? The episode works because it keeps the pressure close.
A taut Cold War story about jazz diplomacy, Nina Simone in Lagos, and a CIA front behind the welcome mat.
America's Secret Weapon traces a strange Cold War idea: jazz as American persuasion. It starts with Louis Armstrong being treated as proof that U.S. culture could travel farther than speeches, then follows the government-backed tours that sent major musicians abroad.
A sharp espionage-culture chapter that turns Kyiv, Argo, and Tony Mendez into useful pressure on the Scorpions mystery.
Kyiv is in the headlines for Trump, Giuliani, and impeachment, but Wind of Change has come for a stranger reason: a Scorpions concert and the possibility that culture can double as cover.
A wild CIA rock-song rumor gets a careful, skeptical Cold War frame.
In "My Friend Michael," Wind of Change turns a barstool-grade rumor into a surprisingly sharp Cold War lead. The hook is simple enough to sound ridiculous: could the Scorpions' "Wind of Change" have been shaped, or even written, by the CIA?
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
Jake Halpern and the Snowball team track a con artist who defrauded a family.
A city-by-city true-crime documentary, from Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick scandal to mob confessions.
A murder rumor in rural Alabama unravels into a clockmaker's suicide and estate feud.
Documentary seasons on power, corruption, conflict, and Canadian public life.
Patrick Radden Keefe previews his new book London Falling, about the 2019 death of 19-year-old Zach Bredler, who fell from a luxury Thames-side apartment tower called Riverwalk while secretly posing as the son of a Russian oligarch.
Adelanto begins underwater.
Patrick Radden Keefe opens by placing Klaus Meine and the Scorpions at UBS Arena on Long Island, where Wind of Change recorded a bonus episode a few weeks after mid-September.
Patrick Radden Keefe previews his new book 'Rogues', a collection of 12 true stories about grifters, killers, and crooks, including tales about El Chapo, a wine forger, and Anthony Bourdain.
Jason Rezaian introduces his new podcast series '544 Days,' detailing his harrowing experience as a hostage in an Iranian prison and how he survived through struggle and humor.
Patrick introduces an exclusive sample from his new book 'Empire of Pain', which explores the secret history of the Sackler family, their wealth from OxyContin, and their role in the opioid crisis.
This episode preview explores the 1980s cultural phenomenon of Chippendales through the perspective of Candace Mayeron, who worked as a road manager for the male exotic dance troupe.
The host announces bonus episodes exploring CIA involvement in pop culture, including a story about Joanna Stingray and a case of weaponizing rock music in Latin America.
Patrick Radden Keefe meets Klaus Meine in a quiet hotel conference room in Hanover, Germany, after months of tracing the history of "Wind of Change" and the Moscow Festival.
This episode explores the bizarre circumstances surrounding a major U.S.
This episode explores the history of Burbank, California, from its origins as ranch land bought by a dentist to its modern suburban character with unique horse-friendly zoning laws.
This episode features an interview with Dave 'Snake' Sabo, guitarist for Skid Row, discussing his music career, friendship with John Bon Jovi, and a trip to Moscow in 1989.
The host explores a G.I.
Louis Armstrong starts out as a Cold War weapon.
Kiev is not the story.
Spring 2019.
Investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe explores the rumor that the Scorpions' hit 'Wind of Change' was actually written by the CIA.