The song "99 Red Balloons" was originally written in German by Nena in 1983 and later translated to English in 1984, losing some of the original message and meaning. The English version depicts a single detection being mistaken for a nuclear threat and triggering an all-out nuclear strike, when in reality the threat was just a bunch of balloons. The song concludes with the image of a lone girl in a destroyed and abandoned city, with only a red balloon floating above to represent what was once there.

1. I have elected to analyze the song 99 Red Balloons (or 99 Luft Balloons in the German
version) by the German artist Nena. The song was originally written and performed in
German in 1983, then later translated into English and released in a slightly cleaner
version for the benefit of our sensitive nation, in 1984. However, the translation of the
song took with it a lot of the original message and meaning intended to be communicated.
In the English version a single detection turns, without warrant, into a massive nuclear
strike out against an indeterminable threat. The line “This is what we've waited for, this is
it boys, this is war…” depicts a “gung-ho,” semi-obsessive urgency to prove oneself
inexterminable. Said threat ultimately reveals itself to be nothing more than a harmless
clutch of balloons, and the song concludes with a lonely image of a girl in a dilapidated
version of what used to be a living city. Now all that is left is the dusty ghost of what once
was, and the symbolic red balloon floating silently into the abyss above the smoldering
city that is no more.