"Heroes" (David Bowie song)


"Heroes" is a song by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was co-written by Bowie and Brian Eno, produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, and recorded in July and August 1977 at Hansa Studio by the Wall. It was released on 23 September 1977 as the lead single from his 12th studio album of the same name, backed with the song "V-2 Schneider". A product of Bowie's "Berlin" period, the track was not a huge hit in the United Kingdom or the United States after its release, but it has since become one of his signature songs. In January 2016, following Bowie's death, the song reached a new peak of number 12 in the UK Singles Chart. Heroes has been cited as Bowie's second-most covered song after "Rebel Rebel".
Inspired by the sight of Bowie's producer-engineer Tony Visconti embracing his lover by the Berlin Wall, the song tells the story of two lovers, one from East and one from West Berlin. Bowie's performance of Heroes on 6 June 1987, at the German Reichstag in West Berlin has been considered a catalyst to the later fall of the Berlin Wall. Following his death in January 2016, the German government thanked Bowie for "helping to bring down the Wall", adding "you are now among Heroes".
Heroes has received numerous accolades since its release, as seen with its inclusion on lists ranking the "greatest songs" compiled by various music publications; Rolling Stone named the song the 46th greatest ever, and NME named it the 15th greatest. Bowie scholar David Buckley has written that Heroes "is perhaps pop's definitive statement of the potential triumph of the human spirit over adversity".

Title and lyrics

The song title is a reference to the 1975 track "Hero" by German krautrock band Neu!, whom Bowie and Eno admired. It was one of the early tracks recorded during the album sessions, but remained an instrumental until towards the end of production. The quotation marks in the title of the song, a deliberate affectation, were designed to impart an ironic quality on the otherwise romantic or triumphant words and music.
Producer Tony Visconti took credit for inspiring the image of the lovers kissing "by the wall", when he and backing vocalist Antonia Maass embraced in front of Bowie as he looked out of the Hansa Studio window. Bowie claimed that the protagonists were based on an anonymous young couple, but Visconti, who was married to Mary Hopkin at the time, contends that Bowie was protecting him and his affair with Maass. Bowie confirmed this in 2003, over two decades after Visconti and Hopkin's eventual divorce.

Music

Bowie said that the "plodding tempo and rhythm" were inspired by the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man".
Richard Buskin of Sound on Sound described Heroes as a "highly experimental piece of art rock". The music, co-written by Bowie and Eno, is in a two-chord progression, with a "brief excursion to familiar chords" in the key of G. Biographer David Buckley likens it to a Wall of Sound production, a forceful and noisy arrangement of guitars, percussion and synthesizers. Eno said the song always "sounded grand and heroic" and that he had "that very word – heroes – in my mind" even before Bowie wrote the lyrics. The backing track consists of a conventional arrangement of piano, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and drums. The other parts consist of synthesizer parts by Eno using an EMS VCS3 to produce detuned low-frequency drones, with the beat frequencies from the three oscillators, producing a juddering effect. In addition, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp generated an unusual sustained sound by allowing his guitar to feed back and sitting at different positions in the room to alter the pitch of the feedback. Visconti mixed out Dennis Davis' kick drum, stating that the track "seemed to plod" with it but had a more energetic feel without it.

Vocal gating progression

Bowie's vocal was recorded after most of the session musicians had departed Berlin, with a "multi-latch" system devised by Visconti that creatively misused gating. Three microphones were used to capture the vocal, with one microphone nine inches from Bowie, one 20 feet away, and one 50 feet away. Each microphone was muted as the next one was triggered. As the music built, Bowie was forced to sing at increased volumes to overcome the gating effect, leading to an increasingly impassioned vocal performance as the song progresses. Jay Hodgson writes,
Bowie's performance thus grows in intensity precisely as ever more ambience infuses his delivery until, by the final verse, he has to shout just to be heard ... The more Bowie shouts just to be heard, in fact, the further back in the mix Visconti's multi-latch system pushes his vocal tracks, creating a stark metaphor for the situation of Bowie's doomed lovers.

Release

Heroes was released in a variety of languages and lengths. In contrast to the bewildering audio situation, the video was a stark and simple affair, the singer captured performing the song in what appeared to be a single take with multiple cameras, swaying in front of a spotlight that created a monotone and near-silhouette effect.
Heroes was released on 23 September 1977 as the lead single of Bowie's 12th studio album of the same name by RCA Victor, with a length of 3:32, and with fellow album track "V-2 Schneider" as the B-side. It subsequently appeared, with a longer length of 6:07, as the third track, between "Joe the Lion" and "Sons of the Silent Age", on the album in October the same year. Another 12" single, containing both the single and album versions, was released in the US by RCA Victor the same year. The German and French versions, titled Helden and Héros, respectively, was released by RCA Victor. Despite a large promotional push, including Bowie's first live Top of the Pops appearance since 1973, Heroes reached only number 24 in the UK charts, and failed to make the US Billboard Hot 100. In Italy, the song was certified gold by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry.
Bowie filmed a promotional music video for the track in 1977. Directed by Nick Ferguson and shot in Paris, it features numerous shots of Bowie against a backdrop of white light and wearing the same bomber-jacket he wore on the "Heroes" album cover. Pegg believes the effect is similar to Liza Minnelli's performance of "Maybe This Time" in the 1972 film Cabaret.

Reception and legacy

Writing for NME on its release, Charlie Gillett slated the record, saying: "Well he had a pretty good run for our money, for a guy who was no singer. But I think his time has been and gone, and this just sounds weary. Then again, maybe the ponderous heavy riff will be absorbed on the radio, and the monotonous feel may just be hypnotic enough to drag people into buying it. I hope not." Despite the poor review it featured at number 6 in the NMEs end of year critics poll for 1977.
Later assessments were more favourable. In February 1999, Q magazine listed Heroes as one of the 100 greatest singles of all time as voted by the readers. In March 2005, the same magazine placed it at number 56 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. In 2004, Rolling Stone rated Heroes number 46 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was included in 2008's The Pitchfork Media 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present. John J. Miller of National Review rated Heroes number 21 on a list of "the 50 greatest conservative rock songs" due to its anti-Soviet political context. It has also become a gay anthem. Uncut placed Heroes at number 1 in its 30 greatest Bowie songs in 2008.
Moby has said that Heroes is one of his favourite songs ever written, calling it "inevitable" that his music would be influenced by the song, and Dave Gahan, the lead singer of Depeche Mode, was hired into the band when band founder Vince Clarke heard him singing Heroes at a jam session.
Bowie regularly performed the song in concert.

Accolades

PublicationCountryAccoladeYearRank
TIMEUnited States"All-Time 100 Songs"2011
Rolling StoneUnited States"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"200346
NMEUnited Kingdom"100 Greatest Singles of All Time"20025
NMEUnited Kingdom"500 Greatest Songs of All Time"201415
NMEUnited Kingdom"100 Greatest Songs of NME's Lifetime...So Far"20123
NMEUnited Kingdom"NME Readers Best Tracks of the Last 60 Years"201216
NMEUnited Kingdom"Best tracks of the 1970s"20144
NMEUnited Kingdom"David Bowie's 40 Greatest Songs"20141
Mojo MagazineUnited Kingdom"The 100 Greatest Singles of All Time"199734
SoundsUnited Kingdom"All Time Top 100 Singles"19852
QUnited Kingdom"Q Readers Top 100 Singles of All Time"199936
PitchforkUnited StatesThe Pitchfork 5002008
PitchforkUnited States"The 200 Best Songs of the 1970s"20166
Radio XUnited Kingdom"The Top 1,000 Songs of All Time"201024
Radio XUnited Kingdom"Best of British"20167
UncutUnited Kingdom"David Bowie's 30 best songs"20081

N/A designates unordered lists.

Track listing

All tracks written by David Bowie and Brian Eno, except where noted.
;7" vinyl
  1. "'Heroes'" – 3:38
  2. "V-2 Schneider" – 3:10
;12" vinyl
  1. "'Heroes'" – 6:07
  2. "'Heroes'" – 3:29
  1. "'Heroes'" / "'Helden'" – 6:09
  2. "'Heroes'" / "'Héros'" – 6:09

    Personnel

Charts

Chart Peak
position
Australia 11

Chart Peak
position

Certifications

Live versions

The Wallflowers version

American rock band The Wallflowers recorded a version of the song for the to the 1998 monster film Godzilla. This version peaked at number 10 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1998, as well as number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and number 23 on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart. In Canada, the single topped the RPM Alternative 30 for six weeks and reached number 13 on the RPM Top Singles chart.

Charts

Weekly charts
Year-end charts

Other covers

The song has been used in advertising, gracing efforts by Microsoft, Kodak, CGU Insurance, HBO Olé and various sporting promoters throughout the world. It was also used as the intro to the video game NHL 99, released in 1998. Heroes also appears as downloadable content in the music video game series Rock Band in a three-song pack along with other Bowie songs "Moonage Daydream" and "Queen Bitch". The Australian television mockumentary took its title from Heroes. A cover of the single was used as ITV's theme song for its coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The song has also been used in U.S. Walmart television ads to depict first responders and Walmart workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.