1999 feels like yesterday. Literally, I heard the song on the radio as I picked my kids up from school. My driving time is my “me” time, the little that I get during the week. There’s something magical about music booming from speakers all around you. Not only can a song resonate with you — the lyrics, the bass, the melody — but you feel it deep in your bones. Better yet, you can sing as loud and out of tune as you want.

Say say two thousand zero zero party over, oops, out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety-nine

It caught me at that moment. Prince released the song back in the 1980s. When it came out, this song was about the future. Listening to it now, it was an homage to the past.

Party in the Future (The Song Before 1999)

Some of you may not know that Prince released 1999 not once but twice. When it came out in 1982, it peaked at No. 44 on the Billboard charts. After the success of Little Red Corvette, he released it again in 1983, and this time, 1999 rose to No. 12. Clearly, the man knew how to capitalize on his success.

Back then, the Cold War raged. Tensions ran high between the West and the Soviet Union. Countries stockpiled weapons and the threat of nuclear war felt very real. The song touched upon the fears of everyday citizens even as it tried to offer them hope.

Everybody’s got a bomb, we could all die any day
But before I let that happen, I’ll dance my life away

On the surface, 1999 was about the end of the world. Prince had been raised as a Seventh Day Adventist and later became a Jehovah’s Witness. Both religions have a belief that the apocalypse will happen in our lifetime. Cheerful news, right? With world events as they were, it was no wonder Prince found inspiration to write the song.

Still, 1999 was about more than that. While it showed that the world was a mad place, it also offered perspective. If you could not save the world, you could at least live your life to the fullest.

Party in the Present (The Song in 1999)

The years passed and Prince continued to party. Before long, 1999 was upon us. Not surprisingly, Prince again capitalized on the song. He rang in the new millennium with a pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000. In that performance, he warned that it was all going to end. Not the world but the song. 1999 was going to be removed from his set list because “there won’t be no need to play it in the ’00s.”

By this time, the meaning of the song had shifted. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Cold War was behind us. Instead of nuclear annihilation, the focus shifted to the Y2K bug. Back then, computers were programmed to store dates with 2 digit rather than 4 digit years. The fear that data would be lost or that computers would otherwise malfunction at the turn of the millennium was all over the media. 00 might be misinterpreted as 1900 instead of 2000! Banking systems would melt down! Planes would fall out of the sky!

I was dreamin’ when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast
But life is just a party and parties weren’t meant to last

Again, in a time of fear, the song resonated with people. They needed to be reminded that they may be mortal but that shouldn’t stop them from enjoying what time they had left. Worrying about something that they could not personally control was not going to change the end game.

Party in the Past (The Song After 1999)

By virtue of the fact that we are here today, the world didn’t end in 1999. The Cold War did not bring nuclear annihilation and the Y2K bug did not wreak the havoc people feared. It didn’t even hold true that Prince would stop singing his apocalyptic opus. The world rejoiced when he resurrected the song in 2007 during his performance at the Super Bowl XLI halftime show.

It’s inevitable we’ll find something else to scare us in the future too. After all, another Cold War is not too far off.

War is all around us, my mind says prepare to fight
So if I gotta die I’m gonna listen to my body tonight

Times change but there will always be something to fear, a war of some type. A war between nations, a war between individuals, a war within ourselves. If not war, let’s call them differences, divisions, or misunderstandings. No matter what challenges come our way, we have to find some way to cope. Letting loose party-style, i.e., not taking everything so seriously, may be one way to do just that.

Today, 1999 is more about nostalgia than fear. The song lets us look back, not to the Cold War or Y2K, but to times in our own lives when life was simpler, when we were younger, maybe even before people we loved had passed away. You see, 1999 is not really about the end of the world. It is not even about living a hedonistic life. It is about finding peace within yourself. Live your best life and enjoy each day as if it were your last.