I wasn’t expecting to hear the Scorpions in the rural outskirts of Danilovgrad. And especially not belted out by a group of passionate, wine-buzzed, new Montenegrin friends roughly in tune with an accordion player. But, strange things happen when you open up on the road.

My friend, Igor, brought me to this place, a barn-turned-winery in the farmland north of Podgorica, Montenegro. The evening was a celebration for his friend, Pedja, a talented professional who is a wine maker in his spare time. He’d recently redone the barn into a stunning tasting complex for his new vintages, and brought his friends – plus me – to celebrate.

But, it was more than just wine, more than just Pedja, more than just drinking and merrymaking. It was also – perhaps moreso – a typical Montenegrin gathering, an opportunity to savor the beauty of now, the timelessness of the moment, the preciosity of the future, the wonder of the here and now from a people and country and region that endured such horror in the recent there and then.

The accordion player focused primarily on traditional Montenegrin folk songs, homages to the deep history, pride, tragedy of the place. The mood was content, mellow. Then he transitioned to the wistful whistle of that ballad-of-all-ballads of the Cold War, and the tenor of the room changed, focused, voices rising.

Take me
To the magic of the moment on a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow
Share their dreams
With you and me
Take me
To the magic of the moment on a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow
Dream away
In the wind of change…

“This song has so strong memories for us,” Ivan told me. “We listened to it, we sang it, when the Berlin Wall fell, and then the Soviet Union fell. And then we fell, Yugoslavia fell.” His voice trailed off into the song’s trilling denouement.

Igor later spoke of those times, the 1990s, a time of war and societal collapse, genocide and butchery by all sides, fervent, fractured, ferocious nationalism conjured from the ashes of a nation.

“But we had hope, we the young ones. Music, like Wind of Change, was an anthem, it reminded us that something different was possible. We knew a different time would come, and we’d help make it come.”

As I look upon the America of today, I worry we are careening, rudderless, down a similar road to that of post-Tito Yugoslavia. We’re “led” by a nationalistic megalomaniac happy to exploit societal fissures for personal, political gain. The laws and mores which have kept us stable (somewhat) for 250 years are tossed aside, while lies and false (or incomplete) narratives are peddled on both sides by snakeoil salesmen and AI bots. We’re invading countries, courting foes and alienating friends, ravaging communities and killing citizens, eliminating soft-power while exercising brutality, and utterly obliterating the systems, standards, and institutions which made most of the world admire us – all in the name of America First.

I don’t know where our country is headed, what the outcomes will be. I must admit that for the first time in my life I’m truly scared.

 But then I think of what I read at a war exhibit in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a quote attributed to an 11-year old Croatian boy during the war: “When I close my eyes, I dream of peace.” (Later made into a beautiful piece by composer Karin Rehnqvist.)

And then I think of that night in Danilovgrad, men singing anthems of yesterday with the dreams of tomorrow, certain – having lived it – of the strength of the wind of change.