a cute picture.

I've aways hated that song because it assumes the military is so stupid they'd start world war 3 over some released balloons. I know it's "hip" to think that,but honestly,I can't really see that happening in real life.

I don't think it's meant to be taken literally quite like that, but given the time it was made, it seemed quite a precarious thing. The 'Red balloons' could have been almost anything, and such an event was probably easier triggered than is really comfortable to think about.

The time it was made was the 80s and while not as advanced as modern tech,it was hardly sticks and mud. They could pinpoint a target on Earth and launch a missle at it from the other side of the planet,I'm pretty sure they had the sense to double check to see what it was. In fact,in the song itself,they mention a squadron of jets who had "orders to identify,to clearify,and classify". Then they go from that to "dust that was a city". What the hell happened between "identify the target" and "dust"?

It's basically about how the military *wants* war rather than is simply ready for war. And quite frankly,I find it a bit pretentious. I'm not saying you shouldn't draw pics of it and stuff,just acknowlege the song for the anti-military propaganda it is.

Well, obviously the fact that we were born at all - and I presume you are around the same age as me or younger if you do not understand the tenseness of simply living under the mutual standoff and its implications - proves that cooler heads prevailed. Still, what I get out of it, is that it really only takes a single, and perhaps surprisingly small event to make something go wrong and the dominoes to start falling.

Still, things like http://officersclub.blogspot.com/20.....ose-calls.html make chilling reads. :)

Actually,it really proves my point that the song in question really underestimates the cool headedness of the military. Noone wants a nuclear war. No sane person wants a war at all. But the fact a lot of "hip" people tend to forget is that sometimes war is an ugly necessity of life and use any instance of it to reaffirm that the military is a bunch of warmongering nutjobs who seek to end all life in a mad attempt to gain some kind of power.

If you listen to the song,really listen,it goes on about how eager the military is to start a fight. If that were true,any one of those "close calls" would've gone into full scale war,rather than becoming funny stories of how close we came to it.

I tend to feel the fears were well founded and justified, regardless of the outcome. That we could have potentially been razed over something like a bear trying to scale a military base fence in the middle of the night is profoundly frightening. Thankfully, we don't live with that over our heads as much as the folks that did when the song was actually produced, in west germany - the country that was arguably ground zero for escalated conflict in most cases.

Well,as I was alive in the 80s,yes,nuclear war was a concern,but the fact is that even at the young age I was at the time (I was born in 74,so it was pretty young) I knew the military wouldn't seek to start a nuclear war simply because neither side would really "win" so much as "take the other guy down with us".

So,yeah,the song's anti-military,regardless of how you look at it. And more than a little paranoid. They had "bugs in the software" and it didn't trigger shit. Had bugs in the hardware,human error,and things just plain going wrong too and it didn't accidently start a nuclear war. It would *only* have happened the way she discribed if the military really was eager for war which was,and is,simply not true.

So we had the bugs,we went to alert statis,yet no nukes were fired. Why? The all too human element she discounts. The very people she villifies as inhumane monsters are the very ones who prevented it. Makes you think.

I think the impasse we're having here is trying to make two very distinct points. Mine is that the song is expressing what the world felt as a very justifiable concern, and you that the song is dismissing what is in supposed actuality two very competant military complexes that would 'never do the deed.' Regardless of how improbable you feel it may have been, there was a definite distrust there - and it struck a chord with audiences over what was otherwise another rather flaky 80's melody. I don't have nearly as much faith as you in the competancy of two groups that would have hung that sword above us in the first place, but I'm not going to try to shake yours. :)

Trust me,WW2 was a time of "super weapons" and the fact is,Germany only had the shot it had of taking over the world because of the fact they worked up superior technology. They had things on the drawing boards that were way ahead of the curve and given time,they might have succeeded simply through sheer technological advancement.

In other words,if you don't build it,someone else will. You live in a world where we have the technological advantage,but it wasn't always that way. So they didn't really have a choice about "hanging that sword over us". With the discovery of nuclear power,and it's destructive capablities,not building those weapons would've left us at someone else's mercy. It's like going to a gunfight without a gun. Some of us realize the importance of self-defense.

And it is because they were for self-defense that they were never fired. My point isn't a matter of faith,it's simple logic. There is NO reason to fire first in a stand off unless you're desperate. We aren't desperate. It's that simple.

I know people love to "what if" and throw in all kinds of circumstance and conditions to change a situation,but a stand off is a stand off and that's what we had. Neither side wanted to blow up the world because there's no sense in doing so. There's a reason they call people who do want to blow up the world madmen. It's because doing so has no logical reasoning behind it. Well,unless you have another planet to go to,even then it's still pretty nutty.

That's why most people can't write up good villians. There's a difference between being a "bad person" to gain something and "I'm gonna blow up the world!" insanity. End up 2 dimensional and just plain stupid.

So no,it's not a matter of faith,it's a matter of common sense.

..But we can both agree that American Pie is largely about the percieved downfall of modern music. :)

Actually,if you listen to the last verse before the chorus. "And the 3 men I admire most. The father,son,and the holy ghost. They caught the last train for the coast. The day the music died. And they were singing...." If the music died,how could they be singing?

Personally,I think it's a song about how the music industry goes through low points when over-commercialized and the music "dies" for a while. Til people who like to play music for the sake of playing music start in again. Then you get some good music for a while again.

Even if the song was intended as such,there's always been gloom and doomers who go on about how everything's going to end and shit,never understanding that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end,if you don't mind me quoting a song. :p

So no,I don't agree on that either. ;)

I don't mind at all. I delight in interpretations of that particular tune, among others. :) I'm not sure about the 'three men' representing buddy holly, the big bopper, and ____ who perished in the plane, but at the very least the opening verse is a definite remark. I'd love if he ever gave a definite answer on its riddles, but in a way its more fun that he doesnt. :)

Alot of things in life are how you precieve them rather than how they actually are. In the case of 99 Red Balloons,it's easy to disprove their statement is completely false. In the case of American Pie,it's harder to really come up with one statement with all the symbolism,so disproving it is trickier.

Still,I think the overall theme is about how bad things get in music before they get better.

Wow... and all this time I thought the song '99 red balloons' was about, ummm, well.. 99 red balloons.

I never did listen too hard to the lyrics of songs in the 80's. >.>

Holy crap. Look how skinny this post is. It's insane.

Also: Cute drawing, Sigil. Not that I know the song, and I think I complimented the sketch before anyway.

Richie Valens

Incredibly late to the party, of course, but hey, it's a fair question that was never answered.

The song was originally written in German, and while the English version caught most of the spirit of the original, it didn't quite manage all the details.

http://www.inthe80s.com/redger3.shtml includes a side-by-side-by-side lyrics comparison, but in short, in the original, the jets went to check it out and the people in the neighbourhood who didn't know what was going on started shooting at them, while opportunistic politicians pushed things the extra step.

PS. (to the artist) Nice pic!

99 Red balloons floating in the summer sky...

Hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk :)

Das ist ein mal Soviet kommt wegen neun und neunzig luftballoons.

(My German is rusty, so don't kill me for mistakes)

I'd love to get an mp3 of the original version of that song, but can't find it anywhere :(

"POP!"

Just kidding, hey I love this. :)

I like how surreal your pictures are. Some shiny furry reality not too different from our world...except with vixens on balloon in the air.

*zip*.. aww, cute

*goes off to explode somewhere.*

....better than a pink helicopter.

How is she gonna get down now?

I'm in love with her outfit! ^-^

God bless German 80s music. Nukes in West Germany, nukes in East Germany, they'd be the first to go... Why not make peppy synthpop about it? :D

I didn't get the musical reference at first n.n;;

I think it's funny though, that Vector Sigil travelling at 15,000 feet should be such a threat should she land! :>

Fantastic.

Beautiful image in my opnion! I love the clouds and the balloon, the flying...hehe and the missile XD

".. you mean it was a weather balloon this time and not aliens?"

Is that Katamari dangling to her left?

**right**