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Saturday, March 31, 2007
a little help?
Our family needs your assistance. It's hard for me to ask like this, but I feel I must. We are having serious issues and your contribution is vital to our emotional health.
We need you to weigh in on a very important issue. (whew! you thought I'd gone all Dickens-orphan on you, didn't you? No, the aid we need is solely of an academic nature.)
OK, there's this song. Or was. By Nena. And everyone who was born before say 1980 knows it. Yes, I'm talking about "99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons".
I'll wait while the wave of nostalgia passes. Are you back? OK.
T and I have a little debate going on. It's not a serious debate -- nowhere near the level of the does-every-object-with-mass-have-its-own-inherent-gravity one (which I won) or the how-do-rockets-propel-themselves-in-space one (which T won). One of us has always thought the gist of it was that these two lovers bought these balloons and let them go, and they got picked up on radar and via an enormous mis-step, it brought on World War III. The other (and I'm not going to tell you who but this person may or may not possess a Y chromosome) thinks that the balloons are just a symbol for our lost innocence, and that they happened to be floating by while the world pretty much ended, in a truly-on-purpose nuclear holocaust. I must admit that his idea sounds more... song-ish. Also that he was 13 when the song was popular, and I was seven.
So what do you all think? Am I a total dork? (Wait, don't answer that.)
Comments
LOLOL! I loved that gravity arguement. =)
Posted by: debi at March 31, 2007 04:21 PM
Wow. I had absolutely *no* idea the song had *anything* to do with nuclear war! I thought it was just about 99 luftballons... and... some German girl who liked to sing about lots of ballons? ;o)
I guess I haven't heard it in English-- or at least not since I was old enough to care to pay attention to the words. I'll have to hunt down the lyrics on that one...
Posted by: Michael ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.1970dodgecharger500.com/oldsite/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 31, 2007 04:33 PM
I think that T is right -- they're happily buying their red balloons and WHAM! Nuclear holocaust. What we need, though, is someone that can read German and tell us the original gist of it. Here are the lyrics (like Michael, I went and looked it up):
http://www.eightyeightynine.com/music/nena-99luftballoons.html
As for your other arguments, Dr. G the physicist says that each object does, in fact, have its own gravity. He also says that rockets propel themselves in space via conservation of linear momentum and action/reaction. There is my public service for this week.
Posted by: mary at March 31, 2007 05:13 PM
Michael, if you can't find a place to listen to the song, let me know. I'll see if I can help out with that.
Mary, thank you for your input. Also thank Gintaras, although we had already hashed those particular subjects out and eventually arrived (yay us!) at those correct conclusions. This was back in the good old days, when we actually had to look things up in books to find out who was right and who had just spent several hours vehemently holding to an incorrect position. These arguments are a lot shorter and less memorable since the advent of Google.
Debi, I knew you would be glad to have that brought up again. :D
Posted by: Rachel at March 31, 2007 05:58 PM
The English translation certainly looks to me like your interpretation is right; the balloons seem to be the proximate cause of the panic. Lots of people around here speak German (the border is less than an hour's drive from where I live). I'll try to remember to ask someone.
Posted by: dichroic at April 1, 2007 11:39 PM
Personally? I always thought that the balloons were the cause. But that's just me. :-)
Posted by: thicket dweller at April 6, 2007 11:41 PM
Well, listening to the song I never heard anything past the line "99 red ballons" (or luft). Which I guess means I wasn't so much listening. Looking at the lyrics, I agree with you that the balloons caused the panic, when someone saw them on radar.
I think the part in German is saying, "Look at these Americans scrambling to figure out what this song means. Ha! Pass the cheese and beer."
Posted by: Jeana at April 11, 2007 05:14 AM
I'm with Jeana...don't even know the lyrics.
Your battles with T are much more intellectual than my battles with Ryan. Our first and most persistent squabble is regarding the supremacy of Bruce Lee vs. Jackie Chan (I am on Bruce's side).
Posted by: Kristen at April 25, 2007 11:30 AM
You're right on this one, Rachel. This song was current when I was taking German in high school so I remember us discussing it.
I'm super late weighing in on this but I'm just now getting back to reading your blog. Always a pleasure!
Betsy J.
Posted by: Betsy Jones at July 3, 2007 05:26 PM
