One Hit Wonders: A German Anti-War Song’s Meteoric Rise to the Top

In 1983, the obscure, Berlin-based band, Nena, unexpectedly broke through the decade's mold of big hair and brick-sized phones with its hit anti-war single, "99 Luftballons."

Sometimes, the music industry is all about being in the right place at the right time. One Hit Wonders determines the factors that may have helped popularize a hit song before the artist in question ultimately disappeared from the spotlight.

Written by Grace Robertson

Photo courtesy of BZ Berlin

At a Rolling Stones concert in 1982, seasoned guitarist Carlo Kerges watched Mick Jagger's thousands of balloons float into the West Berlin sky and over the Berlin Wall. The moment inspired Kerges, so he grabbed a piece of paper and wrote the opening lines to “99 Luftballons” for his band, Nena. 

The name 'Nena' has three different meanings: it’s the name of the band itself, the lead singer Gabrielle Kerner’s nickname, and the title of their debut album released in 1983. The band was formed a year before, when Kerner and drummer Rolf Brendel, her boyfriend at the time, were encouraged to move to West Berlin by Kerner’s label, CBS. There, they met bassist Jürgen Dehmel, guitarist Carlo Kerges, and keyboardist Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog Peterson.  

The band added "99 Luftballons" as the sixth track on its first album. Nena gained some traction after playing the single "Nur Getraumt" in 1982 on the popular German TV show "Musikladen," but the group was still relatively unknown outside of Germany. "99 Luftballons" wasn’t immediately successful on a global stage — in fact, it wasn’t even released in the U.S. until an LA-based disc jockey found a copy and played it on the radio. Soon after, the song became an international phenomenon. 

“99 Luftballons” is one of just 20 non-English language songs that have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the chart’s history — and it’s the only German song to do so. Before BTS and Bad Bunny convinced an American audience that pop music not sung in English can still be wildly successful, non-English songs that reached mainstream success were few and far between. 

When the Berlin Wall was looming over Germany, and the threat of nuclear attack was at the forefront of American politics, the thought of a German pop song achieving mainstream success in the U.S. was laughable. But to Americans and Germans alike, “99 Luftballons” captured the spirit of wartime hysteria and uncertainty that plagued the second half of the 20th century, and packaged it into a dance-able pop song about balloons. 

In a 2016 interview, Kerner reflected on what it was like living in a divided Germany: “We were all playing and making music, though, the Wall was there reminding us that there were people sometimes just meters away, that spoke the same language even, that we couldn’t touch or reach,” she said. “That’s a really crazy feeling.” 

While the song was translated to English and rereleased after its popularity, the original lyrics capture the sentiment better: 

99 Jahre Krieg  (99 years of war)

Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger (Left no room for victors)

Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr (There are no more war ministers)

Und auch keine Düsenflieger (Nor any jet fighters)

Heute zieh' ich meine Runden (Today I'm making my rounds)

Seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen (See the world lying in ruins)

Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden (I found a balloon)

Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen (Think of you and let it fly away)

The song doesn’t start with the violent drums and pulsing dance-club beats that were popularized by other '80s hits like "Take On Me" and "Break My Stride."  Singing gently over nothing but a keyboard reminiscent of an organ at a church service, Kerner tells a story about 99 balloons. The drums drop a beat before the second verse, and then a groovy keyboard motif and an electric guitar set in. The catchy hook contrasts with the somber lyrics — in the second verse, Nena explains how people mistake the 99 floating balloons as a sign of danger: “99 balloons on the way to the horizon / People think they’re UFOs from space / So a general sent up / A fighter squadron after them.” 

At the climax of the song, aided by the chiming keyboard and the drum’s kickbeat, the singer yells that the threat wasn’t an attack — only 99 balloons — and the drum suddenly drops out. The song returns to its beginning for the final verse, with no instruments but the electric keyboard and Kerner's vocals — a sobering ending both instrumentally and lyrically.

Image Courtesy of Epic Records 

Kerner went on to release 18 other albums both as a band and a solo artist, but none of her other tracks garnered as much attention outside of Germany as “99 Luftballons” did. The song rose to the top of the charts on the back of Cold War tensions. As both the U.S. and the Soviet Union grew their arms buildup in the early '80s, music reflected the renewal of the tension between the two superpowers, and piqued American interest in the culturally and politically divided Germany. David Bowie was one of the first artists to kickstart American fascination with German life after his three-album release, Berlin Trilogy. The album fell under the new wave subgenre krautrock, which influenced the post-punk, electronic sound of “99 Luftballons” that blurred the line between German and American production. “99 Luftballons” caught the tail end of American fascination with German life, and the song’s catchiness and danceability helped set the stage for the New Age pop music phenomenon.

“99 Luftballons” marked its place in ‘80s pop history, and is still used today in everything from "Westworld" to "Gilmore Girls" to set the atmosphere of the ‘80s. Recently, the song has had a resurgence as a karaoke bar staple, right beside classics like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” 

The band Nena released three more albums before it broke up in 1987, but Kerner never stopped releasing music under her stage name Nena. In fact, she released the album Licht in 2020. However, her band and solo projects never had the same effortless hold on American pop music and culture as "99 Luftballons" did in 1983. While at first glance it seems like an outlier, the song also captures the spirit of the decade: finding joy in the midst of uncertainty. In the end, we’re all just balloons, floating anonymously through the sky.