You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we got
Set them free at the break of dawn
'Til one by one they were gone
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, "Something's out there"
Floating in the summer sky
Ninety-nine red balloons go by

Ninety-nine red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

Ninety-nine Decision Street
Ninety-nine ministers meet
To worry, worry, super-scurry
Call out the troops now in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is war
The President is on the line
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

*Ninety-nine knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Every one's a super-hero
Every one's a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify and classify
Scramble in the summer sky
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

Neun-und-neunzig Kriegsminister
Streichholz und Benzinkanister
Hielten sich fuer schlaue Leute
Witterten schon fette Beute
Riefen: Krieg und wollten Macht
Mann, wer haette das gedacht
Dass es einmal soweit kommt
Wegen neun-und-neunzig Luftballons

Ninety-nine dreams I have had
And every one a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standing pretty
In the dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
Here it is, a red balloon
I think of you and let it go
- Goldfinger "99 Red Balloons" Stomping Ground

I think I'll have to have the Art of Noise cover this version sometime. I know it's a cover, and I'm quite fond of the original too, but for some reason I think Goldfinger's version is more Kate's style. It lacks a keyboard part, which makes that notion kind of counterintuitive, but I think for a song like this she'd want to have herself free to get out from behind the stack and do the usual "punk singer with microphone stand" things. It's a change of pace. Besides, I like the mixed-language lyrics. :)

* This verse isn't present in the version of "99 Red Balloons" that's on Stomping Ground - but I know Goldfinger recorded it, because it is in the excerpt from their version of the song that's in Gran Turismo 3. If anybody has any information about where I might find a complete version of the song that has that verse in it, please let me know; I'm quite curious as to why it's missing from the album version in the first place.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/