“Fairy Tale” is recorded for the first time in 1988 (Portastudio). It did not become as famous as “A Star Called the Sun” or “Change”, never sounded at concerts and was not preserved in an acoustic version, but for many fans of Viktor Tsoi and the Kino group, it became a favorite. It touches the soul with its thoughtful depressive atmosphere and deep philosophical and lyrical overtones.
The main theme of the song is the inner loss and fatigue of the lyrical hero. Each line of the “Fairy Tale” is filled with melancholy, gloom and hopelessness: the phone is silent, and the rain is knocking like machine gun shot, and the trees seem to be sick with the plague, and the sun’s rays do not cut the sky, and the sun itself is already beginning to seem like a dream, not real object. The life of the lyrical hero of the “Fairy Tale” has become so difficult and colorless that he perceives it as a strange fairy tale with an inevitably unhappy ending.
The atmosphere and picture depicted by the lyrical hero of the “Fairy Tale” reflects his inner state, the soul of a person who is tired of the dullness of everyday life and endless heaviness inside, from the fact that in an endless battle everyone speaks for himself and does not provide any support to his neighbor. He feels the hostility and threat coming from the world he observes from the screen-window. Endless autumn with diseased trees is the hero’s eternal melancholy state, from which there is no way out. He feels as if he is locked in a steel cage and finds neither the strength, nor the desire, nor the reason to open it and try to get out.
At the end of the song, death seems to come to the hero. She calls him on his way, tells him to leave his body on the ground. Saddened, he realizes that he still wants to sing, that something else keeps him on the ground, and this something is love, which turned out to be too little in an already not very bright life. The motif of a long and gloomy, devoid of love, life and sudden death is another theme of the Fairy Tale.
You can, of course, draw a parallel with the creative crisis. All this heavy atmosphere and gloomy images, parallels with infected trees and eternal autumn, in which the sun only dreams, and only strange tales come to mind – this is the state of the creator, who is in a protracted creative crisis. And the lyrical hero wants to get rid of him as soon as possible, but for this there is not enough feeling of need, love and at least a little sunlight. While it seems that the sun is a vague guest from dreams, it will not work to create. And the body is not allowed to sing, depriving it of the opportunity to express everything that one would like.
Some see political motives in the lyrics of the song. The lyrical hero is in such a depressed state precisely because he cannot live and create freely. Where the morning shines like a spotlight (as if in a prison), with constant censorship that does not allow you to sing what you want, where all living things are represented by plague trees that do not add pleasant colors to the gloomy picture, not a single the desire to live, let alone to create. Sitting at the window and looking at the gloomy outside world, the lyrical hero compares life in this place with life in a fairy tale. A strange tale with an unhappy ending.
Despite the existence of such a motive, it is more likely that this composition is dedicated to the depressive-melancholic state of the lyrical hero himself. This is precisely the inner, spiritual and very personal, close to each of us, because we all occasionally find ourselves in such a state.
Not only the text allows the listener to immerse himself in the atmosphere created by the “Fairy Tale”, but also the selection of the composition itself. The chords here are heavy and gloomy, the rhythm is slow, which is why the melancholic state of the lyrical hero is felt from the very first lines to the very end of the song. Viktor Tsoi’s voice only adds to the atmosphere. A deaf baritone with tired and slightly indifferent notes makes it possible to understand how tired the lyrical hero of the “Fairy Tale” is from this unsightly picture of his own life. He is ready to accept his death, even dreams about it, regretting only that he did not receive enough sunlight, love and warmth.
The “fairy tale” is really strange, with an unhappy ending – the inevitable death of a person who has long forgotten what freedom, love and sunlight are.
