Yester-day, I was thinking about how the first verse of the Beach Boys' "California Girls" is an example of a rhetorical catalogue, and that - in turn - got me thinking about the bridge of "Back in the U.S.S.R." which is a nod to the Beach Boys both lyrically and musically (I think I read somewhere that Mike Love suggested the pastiche to them while in India). In "California Girls," there are four types of girls, but there are only two in "Back in the U.S.S.R.": "the Ukraine girls" and "Moscow girls." I'm not sure if two really constitutes a catalogue, but I thought I'd mention it at least.
This also gives me the opportunity to note two other allusions in the song. The title seems inspired by Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." and the line "That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind" seems to be a reference to "Georgia on My Mind," probably most famously performed by Ray Charles. Because Georgia is also a country that was once in the U.S.S.R., there might also be something of a pun there.
