Vladimir Vysotsky

By Leo Gura - July 26, 2022

Vladimir Vysotsky was a prolific Soviet-era guitarist, songwriter, and bard, unlike anything seen or heard in the West. What Bruce Lee was to martial arts, Vysotsky was to song-writing. This guy was a song-writing genius.

He used sophisticated, florid vocabulary in all his songs. My Russian lexicon isn’t good enough to understand all of it, maybe like 70%. And he has like 100+ amazing songs.

When I heard him as a kid I would think, “His voice sounds like he drinks gasoline.” Well, he was a heavy drinker, as Russians tend to be. Rumor has it that when alcohol was scare in the Soviet era, some men would drink gasoline to hold themselves over. Vysotsky died at age “42 under heavy sedation with an improvised cocktail of sedatives and stimulants”. A tragically early death, a la Bruce Lee.

P.S. I’m gonna be sharing more artsy and odd-ball stuff on the blog. Just for fun. As I become more conscious I’m becoming more spontaneously creative. I’m not gonna be the stereotypical dry guru.

Click Here to see ALL of Leo's juicy insights.