| Nena Hagen – 99 Red Ballons Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| The song is about the cold war (arms race) of the erra. It was a time when we loaded up West Germany with nuks and and so did the USSR to the East. Which scared the crap out of everyone in Europe. Lots tension between the countries. As a kid during the 80s I always remembered being so scared of a nucular war, and wish my parents to buy a underground fall out shelter, but was told since we lived so close to an airforce base "located in South Dakota" we would be killed by the blast and not the fall out. This was a scary time I think for all kids of my age. With TV minni series such as "The day After" and hearing of people, schools requiring the reading of the book "Hiroshima" and hearing about being shot trying to get over the Berlin Wall for freedom. I lived in the country and we had missle silos on our nieghbors properties and all over the prarries of South Dakota filled with the Minuteman Missles and their was also one large abandon one that was about 12 stories underground which use to hold the Titan Missle, until the Minuteman took over. Kinda wierd, being only the age of 8 years old during this time how much all of us kids knew of these destructive weapons. I think though scared, I felt we where blessed and was always glad to born in the US instead of East Germany. Kids today may never know of (East/West Germany, Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialists of Russia also know as USSR) and a nerve racking feeling of tension, especially when Soviet Military Leaders of that time stated that if they knew where all 24 aircraft carries where located at one time he would try to sink them and start the war. Also does anyone of that time remember the Russian Bears (Equivalant to our B-52) making routine fly overs in our airspace over Alaska to check our response times of how long our fighters would take to detect them. So with all the tension and all the nervousness this was a protest song about how easy it would be to start a nuclear war with something as simple as a bunch of Childerns ballons. | |
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