Leonid Utesov. Music: Isaak Dunaevskii. Lyrics: Vasilii Lebedev-Kumach
Description: Written by the major composing team of the decade, this song became a colossal hit. Lebedev-Kumach (1898-1949), the major lyricist of the Stalin era, got his start as an agitational poet in the Civil War. Later a journalist, poet, and writer of song lyrics, he was a frequent collaborator of Dunaevskii, the king of Soviet songwriters until his death in 1955. Together they did the songs for Grigory Alexandrov s big-time musicals: Happy-Go-Lucky Guys, Circus, and Volga, Volga.