Grigori Rasputin in Popular Culture - Music

Music

• Rasputin's Sash is the name of a 1970s funk band (with such hits as "Mr. Cool")

• Rasputin is an opera by the distinguished Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara who wrote both the libretto and the music. Rautavaara presents Rasputin as at once "revolting" and "magnetic," a "daringly strange but compelling creation," as the critic Robert Levine has observed.

• "Let Rasputin Do It" is a song on the Swedish rock band Fireside's 1998 album "Uomini d'Onore".

• A Rasputin show was developed by Michael Rapp, and stars Ted Neeley, of Jesus Christ Superstar fame, as the mad monk.

• "Rasputin" was also a hit song by the disco music band Boney M. The song loosely describes Rasputin and some of the events of his life, emphasizing and exaggerating his sexual liaisons. The song is featured on the Wii Just Dance 2 game.

• Rasputin is on the album cover of Electronic's third album, Twisted Tenderness (1999).

• A rendering of Rasputin's face is visible on the single Thirty-Three by The Smashing Pumpkins.

• Bob Dylan's song "I Wanna Be Your Lover" (1965) mentions Rasputin in the lines, "Rasputin he's so dignified. He touched the back of her head an' he died."

• The song "I Can't Decide" by Scissor Sisters contains lyrics referring to Rasputin's Murder. ("...I could throw you in a lake or feed you poisoned birthday cake...")

• Rasputin Music is an independent chain of music stores located in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. The first store, founded in Berkeley, California in 1971, was named after the Russian monk, and the chain today uses pictures of Rasputin in their store decorations and marketing/promotional materials.

• Rasputin and The Mad Monks were a garage band from Lawrence, Massachusetts. In late 1967 they cut a 4-song demo, including a cover of The Electric Prunes hit "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" which (2+ decades later) appeared on the compilation Beyond the Calico Wall. They are sometimes confused with Rasputin and the Monks, a prep-school garage band from New Hampshire who released a one-sided covers LP called "Sun of My Soul" (Trans Radio 200836) in 1965 or 1966.

• There was another band called Rasputin And The Mad Monks, this one, formed near Cornell University circa 1966-1967, featured future Magic Tramps drummer Sesu Coleman. The group moved to Boston in 1967 and changed their name to "The Looking Glass".

• Rasputina is an alternative rock cello band from Brooklyn, New York. The band was named for founder Melora Creager's obsession with Rasputin at the time.

• There is a UK-based indie band named 'You Remind Me Of Rasputin!'

• Rasputin is the subject of a song by Therion, "The Khlysti Evangelist".

• Rasputin is also the name of a song by Johnny Hollow and the lyrics reflect on his life.

• Rasputin is depicted on the cover of Type O Negative's 2007 album, Dead Again.

• The Austin Lounge Lizards depicted Rasputin's encounters with the American medical system in their song "Rasputin's HMO"; this portrayed Rasputin as being unable to obtain medical treatment fom his HMO despite having been poisoned, burned, exploded, shot, and thrown in a river.

• The Finnish folk metal band Turisas used to do a live cover of Boney M's song Rasputin. In 2007 they even recorded a studio version and released a single called "Rasputin".

• The American progressive metal band Mastodon released a concept album in 2009 entitled Crack the Skye. It features a track called 'The Czar' which is about Rasputin.

• The Brazilian/American Thrash Metal band Cavalera Conspiracy wrote a song entitled "Rasputin" on their second album Blunt Force Trauma.

Rapper Hodgy Beats says "Rasputin, I'm half-mutant" in the Mellowhype song "64"

• American folk rock band the Indigo Girls mention "a poster of Rasputin" in their single "Closer to Fine."