KVN Canceled Music
These three recordings frame KVN's place in late-Soviet popular culture from inside and out. The two anthems, both written by Shainsky and Salibov, supply the program's own voice: the 1965 theme rallies "merry and curious friends" to take up their pencils, while the later "We Are Starting KVN" insists that the game, if it solves nothing, at least keeps humor from lowering its banner and leaves no one on the sidelines. Vysotsky's "Victim of Television" supplies the bitter counterpoint, a comic monologue of a viewer hooked on the box -- sport, talk shows, Nixon and Pompidou -- until his addiction lands him in a psychiatric ward.
KVN Theme Song / Гимн КВН (1965)
Oleg Anofriev. Music: Vladimir Shainsky. Lyrics: Boris Salibov.
We are starting KVN / Мы начинаем КВН (1986)
Vladimir Shainskii. Music: Vladimir Shainskii; Lyrics: Boris Salibov