Forever Young

“Forever Young” is an archetype of the 1980s synth-forward “new wave” or synth-pop music. The lyrics are an embodiment of the fear of nuclear war and were influenced heavily by the political climate of the early 1980s when it was written. Ronald Reagan was president of the US and the Cold War was at its height. After the death of the long-time Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, world fears turned to the possibility that the US President Reagan would trigger a nuclear holocaust. This anxiety was felt keenly in Alphaville’s native Germany: the front line divided the country, with tactical and strategic nuclear weapons threatening both East and West directly.

Looming over the happy optimistic C-G-Am-F chord progression is a fear of lost innocence and cataclysmic war. The song’s lyrics serve as an ironic double entendre that espouses the virtue of youth on one hand while sarcastically condemning it on the other. Asking “who wants to live forever?” under the constant threat of nuclear war or worse: after nuclear fallout has ravaged the planet.