It’s West Berlin, 8th June 1982, and a ragged-throated Mick Jagger is more than ready for some post-show refreshment. Staring out at the mesmerised crowd assembled at the city’s Olympiapark Waldbühne amphitheatre at the conclusion of an emotive, hit-spanning set, Jagger was surely conscious that playing here, in the still-divided Berlin, meant more than a usual show.
For the Berliners in the seats of this Nazi-built open-air stage, this wasn’t just an entertainment spectacle. Rock shows of the magnitude of those put on by The Rolling Stones were pointing toward a liberated future. Prefiguring that day, at the decade’s conclusion, when the Wall finally fell. A day when the people of this detached city could come together as one.
What Mick almost certainly had no conception of, was that he was about to directly influence the creation of a global smash hit song that perfectly bottled the hopeful spirit of Berlin’s citizens - and the fundamental absurdity of the forces underpinning the prevailing Cold War.
First erected in 1961 to divide Berlin between its Western powers-controlled West side and its Soviet-ran East, the Berlin Wall was a microcosm of a divided Germany as a whole following the Second World War.
By the early 1980s, Berlin was literally a city of two halves - where the more liberal West and the restrictive, Soviet-controlled Easterners lived within a few meters of each other - separated by brick, ideology and guard turrets.
But the bulk of its populace longed for unification and eventual liberation from this boxed-in existence that had been imposed upon them.
Back to Jagger, and as he pouted and strutted for the last time that evening, to the strains of I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction), he made a swift nod towards the side of the stage.
Suddenly, a flurry of helium balloons unexpectedly rose up from the amphitheatre and ascended triumphantly into Berlin’s evening sky. Screams, whoops and claps erupted from the stalls.
Was this memorable gesture meant to signify something deeper than simply rock n’ roll pomp? It’s unclear. But what can’t be doubted, is that for many of the assembled Berliners, the image of the balloons gracefully soaring into the night air struck deep.
As the balloons rose higher and higher, far above the reach of any man-made barricade, it was obvious that some would undoubtedly be seen on (if not float over to) the other side of the Wall.
In attendance that night was a particularly imaginative young man. Carlo Karges noted that at that height, and in those quantities, the released balloons - which by now were moving erratically in the wind, and seemingly contorting in shape - could be easily mistaken for a fleet of otherworldly spacecraft. A fleet that cared little of the pathetic, tiny geopolitical concerns of the human beings below.
Suddenly, Karges began to panic. ‘Well, if they look like UFOs to me, there surely must be someone on the East side making the same leap…’
His eyes fixed on the sky, a horrible narrative began to play out in Carlo’s mind; a domino-fall of phone-calls to the Kremlin, frantic missile launches, bitter accusations and recriminations between diplomats and - ultimately, inevitable nuclear armageddon. All triggered by an innocent, peace-aligned gesture of a flurry of balloons released at the end of a music concert.
Snapping out of his vision, Karges left the show and went home. But, this terrifying prophecy would continue to haunt him as the night went on.
Perhaps, Karges thought, there was a song in it.
A song in it there was, as Carlo’s vision would lead to the incredible 99 Luftballons (99 Red Balloons for English-speaking readers). A song that would become a globally-beloved chart hit.
It rocketed to the top spot of a huge number of national music charts - most notably getting to the number 2 spot on the US Billboard Chart. No mean feat for the second single of a previously under-the-radar new wave Berlin-based outfit.
Sung by the characterfully-voiced Nena and her titular band - of which Carlo was primary guitarist and a principal songwriter, 99 Luftballons became inescapable in the early 1980s.
But just how did Karges’ starting point grow from one man’s ghastly premonition to a universally loved pop bopper?
We’ll have to speak to Nena herself to find that out.
![NENA | 99 Red Balloons [1984] (Official HD Music Video) - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/hiwgOWo7mDc/maxresdefault.jpg)
We’re catching up with Nena in the midst of her current Wir Gehören Zusammen (We Belong Together) solo European tour, and want to discover more about how her signature song was first shaped.
First, we asked Nena to elaborate on that original inspiration point - and just what element of the song came first?
“The lyrics came first,” Nena tells us. “Here’s the story: the vision for the song came from our guitarist, Carlo Karges, when we were at a Rolling Stones concert in Berlin in 1982. At the end of the show, the Stones released balloons into the sky, and the wind carried them toward the Wall - toward East Germany.
“Seeing that powerful image, Carlo wondered what might happen if someone misinterpreted it. That same night, he wrote the lyrics by hand and gave me the sheet the next day at rehearsal, grinning as he said, ‘Read this,’” Nena recalls.
“I read aloud: “Hast du etwas Zeit für mich, dann singe ich ein Lied für dich, von 99 Luftballons auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont.” I was instantly moved - and at that moment, I somehow knew this was going to be something big. We both did.”
As understood directly in English, the lyric read;
Do you have some time for me, then I'll sing a song for you
About 99 balloons on their way to the horizon
Nena (the band that is) was first formed in 1981 when the singer (real name Gabriele Kerner) came to live in West Berlin with her drummer boyfriend Rolf Brendel.
Enraptured by the new wave, DIY spirit of its music scene, Gabriele and Rolf assembled the other band members (the aforementioned Carlo on guitar, Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen on synths and keys and Jürgen Dehmel on bass) from the nightclubs and venues of the city.
The band took their name from Gabriele’s (Spanish) childhood nickname, which translated to ‘little girl’. It was a choice which foregrounded her as the de facto ‘star’ of the band.
Initially popular within the Berlin pop-punk scene, a record deal with CBS came swiftly. Carlo's ’99 balloons’ idea was just one of the 12 that were on the list to be tracked for the band’s eponymous debut album, set to be recorded at Spliff Studio in West Berlin. The record was to be produced by Reinhold Heil and Manfred Praeker.
“That song wanted to be written! You don’t plan something like that,” Nena recalls. “You experience something that deeply inspires you. It’s like a vision or an inner calling. You sit down, and words simply flow through you, and within minutes, a fully formed text appears on the page. That doesn’t happen every day - it’s a truly special moment. Carlo completely surrendered to that inspiration and created the perfect words for the message of this wonderful song. Thank you, Carlo!”
Carlo’s lyric recounted his continually escalating vision. Within it, the released balloons (switched from being launched by Mick Jagger, to the song’s singer alongside the listener of the song) are detected on radar. They are then intercepted by (unspecified) military aircraft. These jets assault the balloons with heavy ordinance, and the resulting dazzling explosions cause a panic on the streets below. Other neighbouring nations take note of this odd hostile action. It causes a flashpoint - a reason to break the tension of the stalemate rendered by mutually assured destruction.
Reaction is provoked by war councils and assemblages of bloodthirsty military leaders who plot their collective moves.
Eventually, war breaks out and, naturally - being set at the height of the Cold War’s nuclear panic - total annihilation results.
It’s a song that stresses the banality of war, and the devastating, long-lasting consequences of entrusting the world’s safety to irrational military leaders, each seeing themselves as the hero of their own narrative.
The English language version of the song’s third verse spells out this demented psychology, directly referencing Star Trek’s fictional heroic pioneer, Captain Kirk.
Ninety-nine knights of the air
Ride super high-tech jet fighters
Everyone's a superhero
Everyone's a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify and classify
Its final verse (translated here from the original German, as the UK English re-record significantly changed many of the lyrics’ meaning) depicts the empty, silent wasteland left at the conclusion of the tale
99 years of war left no room for victors.
There are no more war ministers nor any jet fighters.
Today I'm making my rounds, see the world lying in ruins.
I found a balloon, think of you and let it fly (away).
The song reflected the unbearable mindscape of the Cold War, the fear that one tiny, completely harmless, action could lead to global pandemonium.
“I had my own band and was successful and started producing other artists at that time,” the song’s producer Reinhold Heil told LAist. “One of them was Nena, and [99 Luftballons] wasn't a throwaway. The strength of the song is that it addresses this really dark subject matter in some sort of an innocent way, which was fitting her as a personality and an artist and her age group. At the same time it evokes the quite real threat of thermonuclear destruction. That's what happens, basically at the end of the song, that one balloon flies away and the world is in ashes.”
Themes aside, the song was by far the strongest thing the band were dealing with from a musical point of view too.
Shaped largely by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the song’s structure was built around a rising and falling, nursery rhyme-evoking melody. It was an arrangement that was an exercise in dynamics, peppered with vibrant, synth-powered colours - but fuelled by a punkish spirit.
Starting with an ethereal, reverb-soaked version of the central verse hook, Nena spelt out the melodic structure of the song - and introduced the lyric. This was housed within a cinematic-sounding synth pad generated by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen’s Oberheim OB-X. This ambidextrous synth was relied on for the majority of the song’s electronic textures.
As the song shifted gear and began its next section, the OB-X suddenly switched roles, becoming an imposing synth bass, affixed to Brendel’s swaggering beat. This riff vamped and cavorted with some live slap bass punctuation. Before, without warning, it began its urgent jog through its first verse, and its delirious cautionary tale.
It’s here that Nena developed Carlo’s narrative. Further dynamic shifts followed before the song concluded its arc back in the floaty domain of that synth-pad-backed intro, for its final verse.
It was undoubtedly a fantastic, attention-grabbing song that kept listeners engaged, while still sledgehammering that central melody (and message) into their heads. Interestingly, the song didn’t have a conventional chorus. But, it hardly mattered.
It was clear the song was - as producer Reinhold Heil alludes to - going places. But, bizarrely enough, the song wasn’t chosen to be the debut’s lead single. That honour instead went to the brisk Nur geträumt. However, that initial single release would end up being the perfect door-opener, which would usher in its successor’s eventual success.
Released ahead of the album by eight months in May 1982, Nur geträumt initially sold fairly poorly. But, an appearance by the band on German TV staple Musikladen later that summer suddenly exposed Nena’s sound to a wider German audience.
Penned by Nena and Rolf, Nur geträumt’s shimmering synth, bubby arps, stabby guitar and Nena’s absorbing upfront vocal seized Germany’s attention. The single hit number 2 in the national charts in August of that year, where it remained for seven weeks.
“The next day [after Musikladen] we sold 40,000 singles. It became an overnight hit,” Nena tells us. “From there, everything just kept moving - first gear, second gear, and so on.”
With bigger and bigger crowds attending Nena’s shows, the band knew they had captured the zeitgeist of their homeland.
Anticipation for the debut’s release was at fever pitch. In January 1983, the self-titled first album was released, hitting the top of the album charts in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Two months after the album’s release, the band geared up for their second single release. Oddly enough, the band had earmarked 99 Luftballons as the third single originally, but a little record company interference changed all that…
“Why a song becomes a global hit - no one can really explain that... least of all me!” Nena tells us. “But afterwards, everyone always claims they saw it coming.
“For us as a band, 99 Luftballons was clearly meant to be our third single. However, our record label panicked when we made that decision - they tried everything to talk us out of it. Their main argument was that the song didn’t have a chorus and therefore wasn’t commercial enough!”
Motivated to prove the label wrong, the band brought forward 99 Luftballons' release to capitalise on the success of Nur geträumt.
“To this day, I still laugh out loud when I tell that story. Thank God we stuck to our decision. The label couldn’t stop us. Shortly after, 99 Luftballons earned gold records all over the world, and even now, wherever I perform, people sing every word of it - even though, as you know, it has no chorus!”
That original German-language release of the song became a towering international hit. Even (surprisingly for a German-language song) in America and Australia.
Over the course of the year since its initial release as a single, dogged radioplay propelled it up the US single charts. American listeners too embraced the spirit of the song, and its yearning for global security and an end to the lunacy of the Cold War.
Plus, it was one heck of a catchy tune even when uncoupled from its meaning.
“When the call came from New York - an excited voice from the record company telling us that 99 Luftballons was playing on heavy rotation on American radio and climbing the charts - we all happened to be sitting together,” Nena recalls.“So many unexpected, wonderful things were happening - you couldn’t keep up intellectually. We simply lived that time to the fullest and enjoyed every moment intensely.”
But for the more guarded UK market, a request for an English-language version of the song to be tracked for single release was met with some skepticism from the band. Eventually agreeing to the request, lyricist Kevin McAlea was enlisted to pen an English re-interpretation of the song's lead vocal.
As many of the original lyrics when directly translated to English made little sense, Kevin re-framed the same overall narrative in a slightly different way, which Nena would re-record.
It was at this moment that the Luftballon (which translates as ‘air balloon’) became a ‘red’ balloon. The colour is actually unspecified in the original version.
It has been said that Nena and her band disliked this re-working of the lyric. However, it seemed that this time, the record company did in fact know best.
The English language version also proved a major success - and landed the band a stonking UK number 1 hit. We ask Nena how she feels about this version of the song now.
“The English lyrics are fine, but they never came from the heart,” Nena tells us. “They tell our story in a completely different way. I never felt connected to that version. Thanks to Rodney Bingenheimer (KROQ-FM), our German version was played constantly on US radio, and things took off very quickly. Still, the record label wanted an English version - it was purely a money-driven decision, I think. Maybe they also believed that a German song wouldn’t have long-term success internationally. They hoped an English version would reach more people - but all over the world, it was always our original German version that listeners wanted to hear. Even in Japan.”
Sadly the band’s creative adventures came to a close after their fourth studio album Eisbrecher in 1987. Sad too, was the death of that original envisioner of those UFO-like balloons, Carlo Karges, who passed away in 2002.
Nena - who is now a successful solo artist (her last record being 2020’s Licht) still concludes each show of her current tour with a song that, for many, seems to define the contradictions, camp and chaos of that penultimate decade of the 20th century like no other.
We wonder how singing it now compares to how it felt back in the midst of the Cold War.
In today’s divided world, does the song have a new resonance?
“I sing my songs with the same joy as I did back then - otherwise, I’d be doing something else by now,” Nena responds. “And yes, we still live in a divided world. But I believe that this intense process we’re all going through will lead us into a new world - one of peace and togetherness among people. Everyone can contribute to that. Through my music and the connection I have with my audiences, I try to play my part.
“Music can build bridges,” Nena continues. “When people sing together, heart energy flows - in every direction. Heart energy is love. And when we choose love, humanity can come together again and create a new way of being. Wir gehören zusammen’ (‘We Belong Together’) - that’s the title of my [current] tour, and it’s a simple message. It’s about realising that we are all part of a greater whole, and that we can - and must - take responsibility for shaping that whole ourselves.”
Still a professional creative, Nena is aiming to release a new record - and continue her tour into 2026. “Right now, I’m touring across Europe, playing in countries where I’ve never performed live before - it’s exciting, and everywhere we go, we meet wonderful, kind people. Next year, the tour continues - 30 concerts are already booked, with more to come.
"I’m also working on a new album. The songs I’m writing for it all follow one mantra: Alles wird gut - Everything will be fine.”
We ask Nena an obvious questions, after a career of 40 years, is she happy that it’s still this song that most people respond to - or has it become the ultimate albatross?
“That’s easy to answer,” she responds. “I love this song - and as long as I’m on stage, there will never be a Nena concert without 99 Luftballons.”
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