![]() Our teacher played it to us, and it haunted me for a long time. ![]() Song MeaningI first heard this song in 7th grade German class. There's no universality, and no imagination as the band put it, it's "too blatant" and "too strident". It's clearly criticizing the Kremlin for being on a hair-trigger, and Reagan for putting them there. That's exactly the kind of thing everyone woke up worrying about in 1984 (in fact, it almost happened in September 1983, although nobody in the west knew that at the time). In the English version, the balloons trigger a faulty Soviet early-warning system, which leads to a minutes-long nuclear war between the US and USSR. That's obviously not something that could happen in real-life 1983, but it makes you consider the threat of living in a world poised on the edge of war. All of the neighboring countries misinterpret it, diplomacy fails, and the world is embroiled in 99 years of everyone-against-everyone warfare. ![]() In the German version, a general decides to shoot down the balloons in a big show of patriotism. My OpinionThe German version is more effective because, unlike the English translation (by one of Kate Bush's songwriters, not the band itself), it's a fantasy story that only allegorically refers to the Cold War. There's something here from somewhere else ![]() Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've gotįlash the message "something's out there!"
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