Why did Dispatch just re-record their most famous song – in Russian?

It’s a gray April morning in a sleepy town outside Boston, and Chadwick Stokes sits in the wood-walled studio above his garage, reworking a song he wrote decades ago.

“The General” tells the story of a Civil War veteran who has a dream that makes him realize the futility of fighting. Stokes wrote the dream for his band Dispatch and it originally appeared on the group’s 1997 album. Bang, bang. Since then, it has become one of the band’s most famous tracks, a staple of Dispatch shows and a huge hit on streaming services. It has even a shout-out to Hulu’s biotech fraud drama The dropout Early this spring. (“You don’t know Dispatch?” said later whistleblower Tyler Shultz, played by Wallows singer and Dead girls don’t lie (Star Dylan Minnette asks his lab partner incredulously before belting out a few lines of the song’s rousing chorus.)

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Stokes, Dispatch’s main lyricist, has retold the story of the existentially troubled 19th-century general hundreds of times and recorded the song’s Jimi Hendrix-inspired riff. But this morning’s run-throughs are different: The lyrics have been translated into Russian, and the recording – translated to “Généráл” – is a gesture of solidarity with Russians around the world who are questioning their country’s invasion and provocations in Ukraine.

“When the invasion began, We posted a Ukrainian flag on our Instagram”, says Stokes in his cozy living room after completing the recording of “The General”. “One person (in the comments) suggested singing ‘The General’ in Russian.” The band replied: “If someone wants to translate and make it compatible with the song, let’s do it!” – and thus began a chain of events that led to the Russian-language version of “The General” being recorded and released as a video.

Through Facebook posts and other contacts, Stokes found a friend’s girlfriend, Olga Berg, who was willing to help him translate the song into Russian – a language he didn’t speak. She worked with him on the song for a few weeks. Their daily practice not only brought “The General” to life in Russian, but also adapted it a little to the modern conflict.

“That part usually goes, ‘Take a shower and shine your shoes,’ but she said to me, ‘I’m not sure ‘take a shower’ works,'” Stokes recalls. “So we changed it to (the Russian translation of) ‘shine your boots and go on your way.'”

These exercises also helped Stokes master the intricacies of the Russian language. Every day, until the night before “The General” was taped, Stokes and Berg worked on a method for him to present “The General” to Russian-speaking audiences, using voice memos and lyrics to make Stokes feel as natural as possible singing “The General” in its original form. “Olga and I worked on it bit by bit every day, trying to get it right – and then did it again,” Stokes says. “(She would) call me from the bathroom in the middle of the night so she could correct my pronunciation.”

Communication technologies that didn’t exist when The General was first published – Facebook, WhatsApp – helped Stokes with her cross-continental crash course in Russian. “It felt like we were in the future, or like she was a spy,” Stokes says, laughing. “It was late at night (in Poland) and everyone was asleep, so she whispered Russian to me.”

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Berg is working with several non-profit organizations, including the Polish Institute of Emergency Medicine, which is working with other organizations in Europe to bring medical supplies to Ukraine (MJ1) (MJ2). “She does the real work,” Stokes says. “For most of our time working together, she was in Poland and was exhausted from moving medical supplies back and forth.”

As the morning progresses, Stokes works out the finer points of the song’s translated lyrics, which hang on an oak sign in front of him, while switching his guitar between a 1960s FG-140 Yamaha and a raucous-sounding suitcase guitar from Chopped Guitars.(MJ3) . The emotions underlying each recording are clearly recognizable even to non-Russian speakers, although the aim is to make this performance accessible to those who may feel troubled by the actions of their country.

The story-song nature of “The General” encourages listeners to think about the human consequences of war and how people are forced to do things that go against their humanity and how that can destroy a person’s very personality. “I think the best protest music just tells the story rather than just saying, ‘This is a protest song,’” says Stokes, who wrote the hair Soundtrack, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Bob Marley’s “War” are among his favorite anthems of unrest. “It’s more like saying, ‘Here’s a story.’ The listener can guess what’s happening, and sometimes that’s more poignant.”

Because Russia has limited access to the global internet, it’s an open question how far the song will reach in the country. “We’ll put it on Dispatch YouTube and say, ‘Hey, if you have any Russian friends or relatives, feel free to send it on,'” Stokes says. “You never know where it might go.” But Stokes believes the message of “The General,” along with the appeal for donations to the American nonprofit Leleka Foundation – a U.S. partner of the Institute for Emergency Medicine – makes the video’s release worthwhile.

“Some of these soldiers are forced to destroy their humanity. Think of the consequences that will have for the rest of their lives – that’s what this song is about,” says Stokes. “It’s about the general in the song who dreams of the enemy and sees that they’re just human, just like him. He’s changed and embraced that love or feeling that lives aren’t worth destroying.”

“I don’t know if one person or many people will hear it,” he continues, “but it’s worth a try.”

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