99 Baboons? We don't know a word of German!

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Balloons represent hope, dreams, happiness, freedom. There are often balloons at a "grand opening" to celebrate something new, great expectations. The writer of the song, the now-deceased Nena band member Carlo Karges, was at a Rolling Stones concert in Berlin back in the '80s when the Berlin Wall was still up. At the end of the concert, they released all these balloons into the sky, and he wondered what would happen if the balloons floated over the Wall and were mistaken for something else, like UFO's. It really could be catastrophic. What follows is a story about "little misunderstandings" that bring about a big battle over something small: nothing really but a bunch of balloons. Everybody from a general to jet plane riders to war ministers, like Keystone cops, go hunting them down in a fatal confrontation. The lyrics to the original Teutonic version are closer-to-the-bone, more realistic. If you think of this Armageddon-level scuffle taking place in a city divided, it is more human-scaled. The English take--while still communicating the plot and point of the original--loses the appropriate vantage point, and therefore some of the rich flavor and subtext. The "letting go" of the balloon at the song's finale, the end of the world perhaps, is also a rich metaphor for forgiveness and giving peace and freedom a chance.
- Alan, Northridge, CA

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• 80's
• band
• cover
• 99
• balloons
• in
• german
• Nena

[SafronSunset1031]

this song is about armageddon

[w74629]

it isnt necessary to know any word of german. language is never the matter :)