Alexey Rybnikov is a legendary composer who, in addition to several great rock operas, gave us unforgettable music and songs for many films we love. I adore all of his work, but as the first song set to his music, I decided to talk about “The Astrologer’s Song” (also known as “The Song of the Stars”) from the fairy-tale film Pro Krasnuyu Shapochku (About Little Red Riding Hood) by Leonid Nechayev, released by Belarusfilm in 1977. Besides the melody, the song also features wonderful lyrics written by Yuli Kim.
As usual, I’ll remind you of the song itself and also show a few of its most interesting performances. And for those who read the post to the end, there will be a small surprise waiting (I’m sure it will be a surprise for most of you).
So, the film itself is a musical fairy tale very loosely based on the well-known original. The wolves there are a whole family, led by a strong-willed she-wolf played by Galina Volchek; the wolves are not evil at all and even a bit clumsy; and there’s also a wonderful wolf cub played by Dmitry Iosifov, who two years earlier had played, for the same Nechayev, the most famous Buratino of the Soviet screen.
Besides the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf (or rather, the wolves), and the Grandmother, the film weaves in many other plotlines and colorful characters. And on top of that, it became famous for several songs set to music by that same Alexey Rybnikov. When I was a child, the song most often performed outside the film was Little Red Riding Hood’s own number — the one that goes, “Ah-ah-ah, in Africa the mountains are this high.” There was also a well-known conversational song with a spoiled child. But no less famous — and perhaps even more so — was “The Song of the Stars,” performed by the Grandmother (Rina Zelyonaya) and the Astrologer (Evgeniy Evstigneev). Both musically and lyrically, it’s far more lyrical than the film’s other songs. That’s probably why it became so beloved.
(By the way, in the film The Adventures of Buratino, all the music was also written by Rybnikov, and I’m much closer to a song that isn’t the main theme — one that many people might not even remember from the film. But I’ll talk about that some other time.)
So, what did this song sound like in the movie? Let’s take a look.
It’s a very heartfelt performance, sung by actors who aren’t particularly known for their vocal prowess. But that’s exactly why the song feels so close, so familiar — as if it could have been sung by your own grandparents.
Many people performed the song later on, but one rather unexpected version appeared in the 2004 New Year’s special Negoluboy Ogonyok, where it was performed as a duet by Alexander Vasilyev (of Splean) and Boris Grebenshchikov. There’s a video of this performance online, although the sound quality leaves much to be desired:
Much better audio can be found in several fan-made clips of the same cover. The one I liked most is a relatively recent one (from 2022), where the entire video is generated by a neural network based on the song’s original lyrics:
But those are big-name performers. So what else is out there that’s interesting? Here I’m relying purely on my own taste, because for a song this famous there are more covers than you can count.
Let’s start with something close to the original. In 2017, at Alexey Rybnikov’s theater (yes, that exists), there was a concert celebrating the composer’s 70th anniversary. And one of the songs the performers chose was exactly “The Song of the Stars.” Yes, it’s a bit different — but here again it’s sung by professionals, with love for their artistic director, and accompanied by a symphony orchestra:
Among the performers I hadn’t known before, I’d single out a cover by Katya Belokon (the band Velvet), where she performs the entire song solo, but with her own interpretation:
And also a four-part vocal cover by Krolik Kerroll, where the male voices, in particular, stand out with a striking contrast:
And since in the original it’s children who sing about the stars, how could you possibly do without a purely children’s version? Interestingly, kids have performed this song many times and in many different ways, but out of all of them I personally singled out the version by the girls from the TV studio Tovarishch. As performers they overact a bit, in my opinion — but kids are kids, and it turned out quite nicely:
SURPRISE!!!
And finally, the promised surprise. I’m sure many of you have already melted and maybe even teared up over this wonderful song from childhood. And you all remember the lyrics almost by heart (or started recalling them as you went). But what if I told you there are two “Songs of the Stars”? And that both of them were in the film? With the exact same melody. I’m sure very few people will remember the other version. And yet the famous version I’ve been talking about for what feels like an hour actually came second in the movie. Originally there’s a different set of lyrics, and Little Red Riding Hood sings as well. Don’t believe me? Here it is, straight from the film:
So, come on — admit it. For whom was this a surprise? Who actually remembers these lyrics?
