99 Red Balloons

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,
‘til one by one, they are gone.
Back at 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 a 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!”
The president is on the line,
As 99 red balloons go by.

99 knights of the air
ride super high-tech jet-fighters.
Everyone’s a super-hero,
Everyone’s a Captain Kirk.
With orders to identify,
To clarify and classify,
Scramble in the summer sky
As 99 red balloons go by.

99 dreams I have had,
in every one a red balloon.
Now 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.

99 Red Balloons by Nena

I love listening to music, any kind of music, but sometimes I enjoy just reading the lyrics of a song without the music. I can listen to a song a million times without ever really comprehending what the song is trying to say. Reading the lyrics can give a song a whole new meaning for me.

“99 Red Balloons” was released in 1984 and rose to #2 on the American pop charts, and #1 in the UK. It was the only hit for Nena outside her native land of Germany. Of course, most of us remember that there were two versions of this song released, one in English and one in German.

By the way, this is my 99th post. Thanks for reading!

Psalms 144:1-2 Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.