99 Luftballons

NENA

99 Red Balloons

On this day in music history: January 14, 1983 - “Nena”, the debut album by Nena is released (US release is re-titled “99 Luftballons” and is released on February 28, 1984). Produced by Reinhold Heil and Manne Praeker, it is recorded at Spliff-Studio in Berlin, West Germany in Late 1982. The German new wave pop/rock bands debut release includes their worldwide smash “99 Luftballons” (#2 US Pop), which is inspired when the bands guitar player Carlo Karges watches balloons being released at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin. He collaborates on the song with the bands’ keyboardist Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen. The songs’ lyrics are a fictional narrative of children releasing balloons that are mistaken for incoming weapons by the East German army, setting off a nuclear war between the east and west. When the album is released in the US thirteen months after its international release, it features three of the songs re-recorded in English, including “99 Luftballons” (re-titled “99 Red Balloons”) and the follow up single “Just A Dream” (#102 Bubbling Under). “Nena” hits number one on the German album chart, with the US version “99 Luftballons” peaking at number twenty seven on the Billboard Top 200.

This may cheer you up on a dank and dreary day here, overcast and damp and imagine children releasing red balloons over the Berlin Wall . . . . . . . I think I bought this when it came out over here and we certainly really enjoyed it. Can't find the single down in the vaults this morning but pretty sure I did . . . . sadly a bit of a one hit wonder and I often think they could have gone on to bigger and better things. Disliking the English language version didn't help and we wish them every success in their native Germany

Despite having given in excess of 500 concerts over a period of more than 30 years, Nena has never sung "99 Red Balloons" live, even at her rare concerts in England, always performing the German version instead