“99 Luftballons” (German Neunundneunzig Luftballons, “99 air balloons”) is an anti-war protest song by the German band Nena from their 1983 self-titled album. An English version titled “99 Red Balloons”, written by Kevin McAlea, was also released after widespread success of the original in Europe and Japan. The English version is not a direct translation of the German and contains somewhat different lyrics. (More from Wikipedia)
Speaking of Germans, I went into a long discussion of Neue Deutsche Welle (“German New Wave”) in my article on one of the coolest UARB’s of them all, Ja Ja Ja; and I never once mentioned the most successful of those bands: Nena. Their worldwide 1983 hit song “99 Luftballons” was in heavy rotation on MTV long before the English-language version, “99 Red Balloons” came along. (The only English words in the original song were “Captain Kirk”). I might have an excuse if that was all I knew about them, but actually, I had three of their albums and a cassette to boot – one was completely German language, and if anything, I like their German songs better than their English ones. One big favorite: “?” (yeah, that's the name of the song, and often paired with the German word for “question mark”, Fragezeichen). I am often patting myself on the back about how good my current article is turning out, and then I make an inexcusable omission like that.
(April 2013)
