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99 Luftballons

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Template:Single infobox2 "99 Luftballons" and "99 Red Balloons" are protest songs sung respectively in German and English by German singer Nena. It reached number-one in West Germany in 1983 and is one of the most successful pop songs by a German artist in the world. The English version topped the UK Singles Chart, while the original German version reached a peak position of #2 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

History of the song

While at a Rolling Stones concert, Carlos Karges, the guitar player of Nena's band, noticed that balloons were being released. As he watched them move toward the horizon, he noticed them shifting and changing shapes, where they looked nothing like a mass of balloons but some strange spacecraft. After thinking this, he wrote "99 Luftballons".

Both the English and German versions of the song tell a story of ninety-nine balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalyptic overreaction by the military force. The music was composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the keyboardist of Nena's band, while Karges wrote the original German lyrics. Kevin McAlea wrote the English version, titled "99 Red Balloons", which has a more satirical tone than the original.

The song came during a period of escalating rhetoric and strategic maneuvering between the United States and the Soviet Union. In particular, its international chart success followed two events in Europe that raised fears of the Cold War becoming hot. First, in November 1983 the Soviet Union misread NATO's annual Able Archer exercise as an actual preparation for a nuclear strike and activated its own weapons for a preemptive strike. Although few outside the Soviet Union understood the seriousness of the response, historians now consider it one of the closest calls with nuclear war and a reflection of the war angst of the time. A few weeks later, in January 1984, the United States deployed Pershing II missiles in West Germany, prompting protests across western Europe.

In this context, Nena topped the UK Singles Chart with "99 Red Balloons" for three weeks, starting in 28 February, 1984. Strangely enough, in the United States the German version was more successful, charting at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. On March 26, 1984, it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipment of over 500,000 copies.

Nena never had another hit single outside of Germany, and therefore, is considered to be a very successful one-hit wonder artist in both the US and the UK. Channel 4 placed "99 Red Baloons" at #2 in their countdown of the 50 Greatest One Hit Wonders, while VH1 placed it at #10 in their list of the 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders.

Curiously enough, another German language song topped the American charts on the 1980s; Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus".

Preceded by UK number one single
February 26 1984 		Succeeded by

Cover versions

The song has been covered by numerous bands, most notably by 7 Seconds in English, Siobhan DuVall, NOFX , Angry Salad and by Goldfinger in English with a German verse. The German verse in the song is actually just the German version of the English verse which immediately preceedes it. In essence, an entire verse (a humorous one involving Captain Kirk) is cut out and is sung in neither English nor German. The latter cover was featured in several films, including Eurotrip (2004) and Not Another Teen Movie (2001) as well as during various competitions in Nickelodeon's television movie "Rocket Power: Race Across New Zealand" (2002). Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine have also covered the song on their I'd Like a Virgin 2004 album; this version actually contains gibberish lyrics sung in a pseudo-German accent in lieu of German lyrics.

Another popular cover of this song is John Forté's Ninety Nine (Flash The Message) on his 1998 Poly Sci album.

Trivia

  • "99 Luftballons" was also used in a Telus commercial in Canada in 2003. This commercial featured piglets being lifted up by red balloons into the air, with the German version of the song playing in the background.
  • VH1 Classic, an American cable television station, ran a charity event for Hurricane Katrina relief in 2006. Viewers who made donations were allowed to choose which music videos the station would play. One viewer donated $35,000 for the right to program an entire hour and requested continuous play of Nena's "99 Luftballons" and "99 Red Balloons" videos continuously for an entire hour. The station broadcasted the videos as requested from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST on March 26, 2006.
  • In a spoof of American Idol on an episode of the eighth season of MADtv, parodies of Courtney Love, Wham!, and Bobby Brown, who are portrayed as washed-up celebrities, had to sing a song that "was from Germany and had a number, a color and something that floats in the title" with the prize being the privilege of getting a new recording contract to fix their fallen careers.
  • This song has been parodied by a little-known performer named Tim Cavanagh. His song is titled "99 Dead Baboons" and facetiously claims to be a "real" translation of Nena's song.

Mentions in the media

  • A cover version is featured in the European release of the 2004 video game Donkey Konga.
  • On the VH1 one-hit wonders special mentioned above, host William Shatner joked that this was the only song on the countdown to mention him. He was referencing the line: "Hielten sich für Kaptain Kirk." ("They thought that they were Captain Kirk.")
File:My Interpretation.jpg
The song featured on an episode of Scrubs -- J.D. daydreams about him and Mr. Mueller (his German patient) dancing to "99 Luftballons".

See also

External links

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