99 Red Balloons

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Do you like the song? It is an English version of German "99 Luftballons" which means "99 balloons".

My dad gave us kids his excellent 70s turntable when he 'upgraded' to a crappy 80s midi system. Anyway, this was one of the singles we had to play on it. It had the English version one side and the German one on the other. We had no idea what it was about, we just liked the song.

Wish i still had that turntable, although it was probably trashed by the time we'd finished with it.

That's one of my favourite songs.

… you take one down, pass it around.
(High squeaky voice) 98 red baloons

**INFODUMP WARNING!!** Ah yes, I remember how the German version of the song was very popular in the 80s and how its creepy cold war overtones was lost on most of its English audience. And the most of the song sounds cheerful and upbeat that unless you knew German you probably had no idea it's about a couple of teens who innocently released 99 red balloons into the sky, just for the fun of it, the balloons then get mistaken as a threat from the USSR, and nuclear war breaks out. At least one of the balloons and the singer survive in the aftermath of the horrific event that hearing about made me afraid to sleep at night as a kid and does once again.

They also have the song in English and its message becomes more apparent if you know the language. But it still sounds like such a fun song, and it hasn't stopped at least one company to put it in one of their commercials, they just left out the scary WWIII stuff.

I remember one time in 1987 when my sister and I were watching Video Hits. The video to this song came on and my sister asked, "This is your favourite song, isn't it?" I replied, "No. It's I Want to Hold Your Hand, by The Beatles."

My sister was right. How in the heck did she know?

No. It means "99 balloons in flight."

The suffix "luft" meaning what it sounds like it means. "Lifted up".

In the English language version they changed the title to "Red Balloons" to preserve the number of syllables.

Its a fun bouncy black humor song about...the world coming to end via a bunch of party balloons drifting across the inter German border and being mistaken by radar for enemy aircraft and triggering WWIII.

Nothing to dislike about it. It was from last years of the Cold War, so its a bit dated now. The Berlin Wall fell only a couple or so years later.


But...its rapidly becoming UN dated now...with all of the confrontations going on around the globe (Ukraine, Red Sea, North Korea, Taiwan, et al).

This is what we've waited for.
This is it, boys, this is war.
The president is on the line.
As 99 red balloons go by.

Nena is awesome d^_^b

99 dead baboons
by Tim Cavanagh

Hello Bobby my old friend
It's good to see you once again
How's your mother, how's your aunt?
How's your father's skin diving suit?

I've got something you should see
Back at my place; come with me
I've got some brand new furnishings
Plus 99 dead baboons

99 dead baboons
Sitting in my living room
Not too functional it seems
But quite a conversation piece
This one's Jake, that one's Dinah
There's Big Ned in my recliner
No it's not a lazy boy
Can't you see it's a dead baboon?

Dead baboons, dead baboons
Dead baboons, dead baboons

How they got here I'm not sure
Woke up one day, there they werе
Luckily I've got a lease
Allowing pеts if they're deceased
I'm just thankful they're not apes
Cause apes would clash with the drapes
No more napkins at my parties
Wipe your hands on a dead baboon

Dead baboons, dead baboons
Dead baboons, dead baboons

Dead baboons are lots of fun
Playing water balloons I've always won
You can keep your dead giraffes and swine
I'll take dead baboons every time
There's just one problem I have found
It's finding Purina Dead Baboon Chow
But what a happy snorkelling device
With 99 dead baboons

Dead baboons, dead baboons
Dead baboons, dead baboons

Picky thing: Luftbaloon literally translates to “Air-Baloon”. The German word for air is Luft. The Luftwaffe is the German Air Force (waffe meaning gun or war machine or equipment for war) and Lufthansa is a well known German airline (Hansa having something to do with a business coalition that was well known for shipping of the boat kind). The German luftbaloon usually translates to English as simply “balloon”. The word balloon comes from words meaning ball or ball shaped, possibly from an earlier word meaning bubble. Google to read more. In English we sometimes use the term “hot air balloon” or “water balloon” to be more specific about what kind of balloon.
Please continue with your musical discussion.

Everyone's a superhero.
Everyone's a Captain Kirk.

Every news article right now is about how we're going to be nuked any second by RussiaChinaNorthKorea any second now and the world leaders are all morons so it's a lot worse than it was back in the 80s, and I don't know if they a song about it but I'm sure it's not as fun-sounding as 99 Red Balloons.

I like that song. I actually have it on my iPod. Haven't listened to it in a while, though...

Just heard the english version today on the radio at work, and I do like the song so I was glad to hear it...though I do think the german version is better.

As it turned out, "99 Red Balloons," as it was now called, was, of all things, an anti-nuclear protest song. In the lyrics, a boy and girl innocently release a batch of balloons into the air; confused by these flying objects, international governments panic, triggering a nuclear holocaust.