Today has been a really long week, so it seems like a good time for some birthday music, featuring a musician who was born on this date.
Gabriele Susanne Kerner, better known as Nena, was born on this date in 1960. In 1983, during the early years of MTV when music videos were everything, Nena and her band released a song called “99 Luftballons”. This was sung in German, although they did release an English version.
The story is that this is an anti-war song about how acts to show strength can escalate. But if you didn’t speak German, this was just a really danceable song.
If you’re interested in what was happening in Germany before and during the time this song was released, check out my post about the Berlin Airlift and my post about the divided city of Berlin.
So here is the original video from 1983:
And here is a really fun live version from 2016:
Go ahead, you know you want to dance!