99 Red Balloons was a number one hit for Nena, which was both the name of the female singer of the song and her band too, in February 1984. This was the English translation of the original German version, which was called 99 Luftballons, and between the two versions Nena managed to achieve the number one slot in the charts in at least ten countries, including the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and home country Germany.

Surprisingly enough, though it only managed to reach number 2 in the US, this was with the original German language version of the song, which was quite an achievement.

The song was a very poppy, bouncy (fitting for a song about balloons) yet still a bit rocky affair, but the story it tells had a rather darker over tone. The two versions tell broadly the same tale, although the English version isn’t actually a direct translation of the words. It goes something like this…

Some friends buy a packet of balloons (perhaps a packet of 100 but one popped during inflation? Who knows?) and decide to blow them all up and let them loose into the sky. Off they merrily bob, only to be picked up on radar and mistaken as a possible UFO or maybe an enemy attack, which leads to fighter jets being scrambled and the brink of war! Ouch!

The song was apparently written by Nena band member Carlo Karges after seeing a bunch of balloons being set free at a Rolling Stones concert. He noticed the shape the mass of balloons made looked somewhat like a strange spacecraft, and what with the Cold War between East and West being at a height, he wondered what could happen if something as innocent as this occured near, say, the Berlin Wall.

99 Red Balloons is therefore considered somewhat of a protest song, and indeed it was released just after a round of missile deployments by the US and Russia, so the song struck a chord with many around the world at this time.

The song remains popular today, and somebody out there obviously really loved it, as in 2006 one viewer of VH1 Classic donated $35,000 during a charity event for Hurricane Katrina so that both the German and English versions of the songs would be played continuously for an entire hour!

Scottish identical twins Charlie and Craig Reid formed their two man band, The Proclaimers, in 1983, but it wasn’t until 1986 that they would hit the big time. A fan sent a demo tape of theirs to English band The Housemartins, who were so impressed they invited them to tour with them. This led to an appearance on Channel 4 music show The Tube, which gave them their first UK hit single, Letter From America.

Instantly recognisable from their glasses, jeans and thick Scottish accent when singing, Letter From America made them household names when it shot to number 3 in the charts. They had a unique style at the time, being both pop and almost folk music at the same time, the folk influence coming from the warbling sections of the song which is probably why the song was so popular, as everyone loved joining in with that particular bit.

They followed up with I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) which reached number 11 and has now become something of an anthem for Scottish football fans. This song also featured further strange voice work, and I can imagine that going down very well when sung by a stadium of football supporters!

Sadly these were the only two big hits the band achieved, with the rest of their eighties songs, including Sunshine on Leith and I’m On My Way both not quite making it into the UK Top 40.

The band have continued to record though, proving popular at music festivals and they also finally scored a number one with the re-recording of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) for Comic Relief in 2001, which featured Peter Kay in his guise as wheelchair bound Brian Potter and Matt Lucas’s similarly wheelchair bound Andy Pipkin from Little Britain.

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In the days before dedicated kids TV channels, The Red Hand Gang was one of those US TV shows that the BBC always pulled out of the archives to fill in gaps in their children’s TV schedules in the afternoons and during school holiday mornings. Being the BBC though, it was, of course, quality filler material!

The show was an American take on the Enid Blyton Famous Five tales, where a group of kids get together to solve mysteries which they just happen to stumble upon. In this case though we swap the English middle class boarding school kids and the seaside setting for a group of every day inner city kids.

There were five kids in The Red Hand Gang. Frankie was the leader, whilst J.R. was the athletic one, Doc was the clever one, Joanne was the tom-boy, and Li’l Bill was the youngest, and brother of Frankie. They were also accompanied by their dog, Boomer, who even ended up getting his own TV show later on!

The gang got their name from the fact that they used to leave a red hand print on walls to mark where they had been. That was perhaps a bit naughty for the Beeb, but the rest of the show was fairly innocent stuff, with the kids tracking down clues, discussing plans in their clubhouse and they bringing the villains to justice.

The show sadly only managed half a full season before it was cancelled, and to all accounts appears to have had a bigger following in the UK than it did in the States. The thing I will always remember it for though is the title sequence, with the kids bouncing it from all angles (presumably on a trampoline) with the “la-la-la-la-la” theme tune playing in the background.

Oh, and the fact that Doc was played by an actor named James Bond III!

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