August 2017

NENA

In 1981 singer Gabriele Kerner, lead guitarist Carlo Karges, drummer Rolf Brendel, bassist Jürgen Dehmel, and keyboardist Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen formed the "New Wave" (hypespeakfor "3-Chord") rock band "Nena" (Gabriele's nickname).

The next year, while attending a Rolling Stones concert at the Forest Theatre in West Berlin, Carlo Karges (1951-2002), saw some colored balloons released into the air. We think of this as a symbolof aspiration and personal freedom. In tinderbox West Berlin, though, it might be regarded as a threat worth investigating. In Carlo's imagination, fighters might be scrambled to investigate.

Seeing theballoons, the pilots might shoot them down as a demonstration of the pinpoint accuracy of their weapons. This might worry neighboring nations, escalating to a global conflict lasting 99 years.

Or 99 minutes,we might suppose. From this, he wrote the tragicomic lyrics to "99 Luftballon", the most successful German language song since "Lili Marleen" in 1944, the lyrics to which were, coincidentally,authored by another Hamburger, Hans Leip (1893-1983).