Talk:99 Luftballons

message: i deleted the reference to the 1 hour VH1 broadcast of the 99 Red Baloons video.
the reason: it HASN'T HAPPENED YET!!!
*And I put in back in. Because it's scheduled to happen. But to make you happy I changed one word. I'll change it back on Monday. Lighten up. MK2 20:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  '99 Red Balloons' Video to Air for an Hour
**Johnny, I do indeed have the power to predict the future. As you can now see, events came to pass as I foretold. The Amazing Randi is writing me a check for a million dollars as we speak because he was overwhelmed by my ability to predict what TV shows would be broadcast next week. My secret - the TV Guide. MK2 03:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  deleted reference to VH1 broadcast. 

message: Is the parody by Tim Cavanaugh (not sure if it's Tim Cavanaugh) worth mentioning?: http://crydee.sai.msu.ru/public/lyrics/cs-uwp/m/misc.dementia/baboons  I used to hear it on Dr. Demento's radio program.  Esquizombi 12:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  99 Dead Baboons 

message: Who wrote the song?  (Nena??)  Who wrote the English lyrics?  I think the article should give that.
I have a question about the English lyrics given at one of the external links.  It says "Everyone's a Silverhero" - I always thought she was (at least intending) to say "superhero".  Bubba73 (talk), 23:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  questions 

message: Dear 200.140.183.82 
This sentence makes grammatical sense:
Both times, JD daydreams that dancing around in a room full of red balloons while this song is playing could diffuse a tense situation. 
Please stop changing it to ones that don't make gramatical sense, for instance:
Both times, JD daydreams that he is dancing around in a room full of red balloons while this song is playing could diffuse a tense situation.
Dreadpirate Roberts 07:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scrubs reference 

message: Shouldn't the article somewhere mention the german spelling (+ ipa?) of Neunundneunzig? --° 18:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neunundneunzig 

message: The article mentions that "the song has been covered by numerous bands" and lists NOFX among them.  On what album did they cover this song?  I can't find any reference to it in their official discography.
Avitor 9:30, 2 November 2006 (CST)
:I think someone must have confused NOFX with similar band Goldfinger, who did indeed cover 99 Red Balloons/99 Luftballons in their third album Stomping Ground. This version has been used in a fair amount of media, and so probably deserves most mention in this article. See  for more info (sorry, not quite sure how normal wiki linking works! --SeldooN (talk) 23:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There was no Covers section for a time, then apparently a new one was added with no sourcing establishing the significance of any of the covers. This information should not be added without third-party sourcing establishing that the covers are considered significant. The section had been tagged in April of last year for needing sources, and was ultimately removed in November. Doniago (talk) 15:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

text: AFAIK Allmusic is reliable, though I'm not a sourcing guru. I'd say go ahead and add the information, with source of course. Doniago (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  Thanks. Medleystudios72 (talk) 17:30, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Covers 

message: > "Nena never had another hit single outside of Germany,"
What about Austria and Switzerland? --° 08:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Nena never had another hit single outside of Germany," 

message: It may be worth noting - under "Cultural References" or somesuch that GTA Vice City Stories has 99 red balloons to collect, instead of the usual packages. This is said to refer to the song. Martin Packer (talk) 14:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories 

message: I heard the English version of this song, as a kid, and thought she was singing something about "lead” decoy "balloons". 
: 
The small British nuclear deterrent, in 1983/4 before trident was bought from the Americans, was the Polaris.  The Soviets had enough missiles to defend Moscow from a British Polaris nuclear attack.  To overcome the Soviet missile shield around Moscow the British included 99 decoy balloons to be deployed with each of the Polaris war heads so that the Soviet missile shield would be overwhelmed, not knowing what to fire at.  The balloons were weighted with lead so that they would fall through the atmosphere with the same characteristics as a nuclear war head.
:  
In 1983, Reagan announced the star wars project to defend America from a nuclear missile strike so I thought the lyrics were mocking the star wars/star trek technology America intended to use by showing how easy any such technology would be overcome.  The 99 balloons were falling as if to celebrate a coming party, but were actually the ironic prelude to the nuclear warhead explosion.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.110.226 (talk) 03:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  99 Lead decoy balloons? 

message: I have deleted this from the article because I don't believe it; I think it simply confuses this with a different song:
: 
::: The debut of the German version on Musikladen (TV program) 21 August 1982 made Nena "one of the most successful pop stars Germany had ever seen" according to MTV.com.MTV.com Nena biography
: 
The fact is that Nena appeared on Musikladen in August 1982 and sang Nur geträumt, which sold 40,000 copies the following day and became her first hit.  This assertion I deleted asks us to believe she appeared again that same month and sang a song that all other sources say was released the following year, 1983. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion from the article 

message: "The host of American Top 40, Casey Kasem, was one of the few radio personalities who pronounced the song title correctly when it made the charts in the US in 1984."
Is this really relevant? It seems superflus and unimportant, the point about pronunciation was made well enough in the previous sentence and in any case; I would guess that technically this statement would need a citation. So I've removed it from the end of the third paragraph.--ASA-IRULE (talk) 00:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation by outside world 

message: Could any one please tell me why XLinkBot is deleting my link to the 99 luftballons on YouTube. Thanks (User:Edsteroo)  —Preceding undated comment was added at 17:24, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: could somebody please fix it?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.131.36 (talk) 22:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:   DDR leads to a disambiguation page. 

message: Does anyone know why the opening line was translated as "Ninety-nine ..." and not "Nine and ninety ..."? Both are correct in English, and the second fits the rhythm better.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.29.76 (talk) 07:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation 

message: Wondering whether this has anything to do with the 99 Names of Allah...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.197.40 (talk) 02:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: you paranoid?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.23.103.113 (talk) 21:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  99 Names of Allah 

message: In the German version there are no words describing that kids bought the balloons. I guess that is a failure, it could be also adults who bought them? Also in the English version I cannot find a note about children. Does someone has a link or something which references  that kids bought the balloons? Thx!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.180.70.172 (talk) 21:04, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Confirmed, the German version nether mentions the buying or the releasing or kids. The balloons are just there. There is also no mention of a faulty radar ("[...] hielt man für UFOs aus dem All[...]" translates to "[...] were thought to be UFOs from outer space[...]") --2.201.191.90 (talk) 21:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the article and noticed this also. No mention in the German lyrics of children or adults buying any balloons. No toy store either. I guess the next question is why hasn't it been changed?184.156.23.123 (talk) 05:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Why wasn't what changed? The English text is not a direct translation of the German one, that's well known and not that uncommon in general (for lyrical adaptions).--Kmhkmh (talk) 07:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: At the time I posed the previous question, the article made no distinction between the story of the German song and it's English counter part. The English lyrics were written by Kevin McAlea and begin the song with a slightly different story. This is what I was recommending should be changed to avoid confusion. Since the day I posed this question, the problem has been fixed and the information has been changed.184.156.23.123 (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lyrics 

message: Really? This isn't what I would normally call a protest song. An general anti-war pop song, yes. -- J. Wong (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes i wouldn't call it a classical for sure nor did it have that perception in general afaik, but its text has this antiwar theme and it was released during a late peak of the cold war.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:47, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Protest song"? 

message: I read on the following page - http://www.lostidols.com/files/n/nena.html that Canadian Singer/Songwriter Lisa Dal Bello was involved in the translation of the original song's lyrics, which makes sense because she later worked on re-writing Nena's album It's All in the Game in English. Rexgamer (talk) 18:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  English Translation Writer? 

message: The article mentions the 2002 and 2009 remixes but didn't Nena also do a techno remix at somepoint?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.164.104 (talk) 08:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Techno Remix? 

message: The article states that this is the highest charting German song in Billboard, but what about "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco? That went to #1. And if it means the artist is from Germany, there are number ones by German artists.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.172.29.68 (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Highest Charting German song in Billboard? 

message: Have to wonder if the bandmember who said, "I think the song loses something in translation and even sounds silly," was being facetious as the lyrics in German are themselves silly.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.131.186 (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Silly

message: I attempted to add a statement in popular culture about 99 Luftballoons being used in a TV commercial for Coca-Cola that aired on American TV in March 2015 (the ad may be viewed by googling "99 Red Balloons Coke Ad").  My edit was removed, but I'm not sure why.  I think the use of this song in a Coke commercial is an interesting fact that adds to the rich history of 99 Luftballoons.  It also makes one wonder whether the creators of the Coke ad had ever really listened to the song's lyrics.  I'm a relatively novice editor, so apologize if I've unwittingly done something wrong. JCNSmith (talk) 23:19, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: When adding pop culture references, third-party sources should be provided to establish that they are considered significant in some manner, in accordance with Wikipedia's policies against adding trivia. DonIago (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of 99 Luftballoons in Coca-Cola Ad on TV

message: hi. sorry if i'm missing it, but i've looked thru the article 3 times and don't see a track listing; i'm looking to know what was the b-side on the original single release. 63.142.146.194 (talk) 01:41, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  track listing section? 

message: That they are mistaken for UFOs is technically incorrect. They *are* UFOs. They are mistaken for UFOs from outer space. But it would be clunky to reword it. ls the article better off being clunky or with this literal misuse? On is there a better phrasing? - 104.162.19.65 (talk) 19:37, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: UFOs

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140215050747/http://dutchcharts.nl/jaaroverzichten.asp?year=1983&cat=s to http://dutchcharts.nl/jaaroverzichten.asp?year=1983&cat=s
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Corrected formatting/usage for http://cashboxmagazine.com/archives/80s_files/19840310.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for https://www.offiziellecharts.de/charts/single-jahr/for-date-1983
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*Corrected formatting/usage for http://cashboxmagazine.com/archives/80s_files/1984YESP.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Corrected formatting/usage for http://cashboxmagazine.com/archives/80s_files/19840310.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: According to David Frum, the political context of the song was the protests against NATO nuclear missile deployments.[6]
This needs to be more rigorous. I recommend removing this, or providing the primary sources which commentator David Frum refers to.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.14.178 (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  David Frum isn't a primary source 

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :99 Luftballons's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "UK":
From Kelly Osbourne: 
From Relax (song): 
From Goldfinger discography: 
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 16:26, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:99 Luftballons]] 

message: Note 5 cites an article in theLas Vegas Review Journalabout a UFO hoax in the Red Rock area near Las Vegas on September 9, 1973.  There is no such article in on this or any other date.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:2000:F060:DB6:444D:3FC2:4603 (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Red Rock Canyon UFO hoax 

message: I say this because in the Spanish newspapers of the time in the lists of Los 40 Principales puts 99 red balloons, and not Luftballons.
--83.165.1.169 (talk) 20:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Spain, was it not the English version that reached the top of the charts?