There are perhaps a few famous tunes that you think
about when contemplating songs about the end of the world. For example, you’re
probably automatically musing on REM’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It
(And I feel fine)” right now. It’s understandable – few apocalyptic songs have
been able to enter the public consciousness to such an impressive effect. One
of the few others which enjoys a similar penetration is a tune which many
people don’t even realise is apocalyptic – Nena’s 1984 hit “99 red balloons”.
Originally released in the singer’s native Germany
as “99 Luftballons” in March 1983, the song was internationalised with an
English translation and the same, thumping, classic eighties sound (check out
that synth!) to achieve hit status across the world. The lyrical content of the
song doesn’t suggest that it was destined to become an all-time classic, being,
to put it frankly, bizarre. Nena stops to buy some balloons in a toy shop with
a friend, releasing them into the summer sky. A software malfunction causes the
military to mistake them for an enemy incursion, and warmongering generals snap
to attention amid ever-increasing tensions and plunge the world into all out
nuclear war. But in a danceable way.
The upshot of this finds the singer left all alone
in a destroyed city, looking for some kind of evidence of humanity’s existence
– finding a lone red balloon she releases it, the last vestige of a dead race.
Bleak doesn’t do it justice – although the music doesn’t once threaten to give
away its darker undertones.
While the situation recorded in “99 Red Balloons”
seems slightly ludicrous as a cause of nuclear holocaust, perhaps the most
frightening thing about the song is that its scenario came very close to being
reality. In a slightly terrifying instance of life imitating art, on 26th
September 1983 Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov (right) was on duty at the Serpukhov-15
bunker, an early warning site outside Moscow, when he saw a satellite warning
of nuclear attack. As this coincided with the start of a large NATO exercise in
Europe and tensions were running high following the USSR’s downing of a Korean
passenger jet three weeks previously, such an attack did not seem all that
unlikely. Initially dismissing the first attack alert, you can imagine the
panic when a second, third, fourth and fifth flashed up on the system. Petrov
had a life or death decision. His panicked superiors wanting to know whether he
believed the attack to be real (and thus necessitate the launch of a full
nuclear response), Petrov was required to provide confirmation that the
onslaught was an actual attack, or to make a gut-decision and declare it a
false alarm. Given that we’re still here, you can guess which choice he made.
Reassuringly it wasn’t anything as random as a
sudden flight of balloons which caused the meltdown in Russian early warning
systems. Instead, it was the entirely unpredictable phenomenon of the sun’s
reflection on clouds, which some rather primitive satellites decided to
interpret as missile launches. It must have been a relief for Nena to realise that
her song was so far removed from reality…
99 Red
Balloons (Fahrenkrog-Petersen-Karges-McAlea, 1983)
You and I in
a little toy shop,
Buy a bag of
balloons with the money we’ve got
Set them
free at the break of dawn
Till one by
one they were gone
Back in the
base, bugs in the software
Flash the
message something’s out there
Floating in
the summer sky
99 red
balloons go by
99 red
balloons floating in the summer sky
Panic bells,
it’s red alert
There’s
something here from somewhere else
The war
machine springs to life
Opens up one
eager eye
Focusing it
on the sky
Where 99 red
balloons go by
99 decision
street, 99 ministers meet
To worry,
worry, super-scurry
Call the
troops out in a hurry,
This is what
we’ve waited for,
This is it boys, this is war
This is it boys, this is war
The
President is on the line
As 99 red
balloons go by
99 knights
of the air
Ride super
hi-tech jet fighters
Everyone’s a
superhero
Everyone’s a
Captain Kirk
With orders
to identify
To clarify
and classify
Scramble in the summer sky,
Scramble in the summer sky,
99 red
balloons go by
As 99 red
balloons go by…
99 dreams I
have had
In every one
a red balloon
It’s all
over and I’m standing pretty
In this dust
that was a city
If I could
find a souvenir
Just to
prove the world was here
And here is
a red balloon
I think of
you and let it go.
Listen on Spotify: Apopalypse: Apocalyptic Advent Calendar
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