submissions
| Nena – 99 Luftballons Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Very nice, indeed, neiledward. I was a senior in high school when this song was released and have very fond memories of my two best friends and I studying for our physics final the spring of '83 with the radio cranked, hearing this - about once an hour! - and all those other wonderful new wave tunes that 'plagued' the mid-80's. I loved and still love 'em all! It's funny, because I was outraged and embarrassed, both, that the English version sounded so hokey. Though I knew what the song was about, what it was 'saying', I didn't know exactly what the German words meant but I still much preferred the German version. I took German in college and realized how far off the English translation was. It's not even a translation in many places, maybe a interpretation at best. Yuck. Anyway.. Gut gemacht! |
submissions
| Sting – Russians Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I use this song and Nena's "99 Luftballons" as part of a unit on invention and technology that has my 7th grade science students researching a topic and doing some in-depth analysis of that research. The song and video are playing as students enter the room. They are confused, of course, and ask me what they are supposed to be doing with it. I hand them a copy of the lyrics and direct them to follow along the second time I play it. I then reveal some of the symbolism, define a couple of words... and we launch into a crash course mini-lesson about The Manhattan Project, World War II, and Robert Oppenheimer. (Incidentally, a previous comment posted here reported that he was German. He was not. His parents immigrated to the US from Germany. He was born in New York in 1904 and died there in 1967.) I help them analyze the work of Oppenheimer and nuclear technology in general: positive consequences, negative consequences, intended and unintended consequences, immediate and long-term consequences. The cold war, of course, falls in the category of the long-term ramifications of The Manhattan Project. We talk about that a little then return to the song and take another look at the lyrics. They're 12- and 13-year-olds but some of them 'get it' pretty well, and every one leaves knowing something new and being able to THINK on their own a little better to analyze information. Any lesson in which I can use music is 'my favorite' because music has always been a big part of my life. I, like several of those who have commented on this song here already, was a 'child of the 80's' (IHS Class of 83'). It was an awesome song then, and as I have grown older and know more about the history that I was living in at the time... it is even more meaningful. |
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