"heroes"

David Bowie celebrated Krautrock on the futuristic centerpiece of his Berlin Trilogy and found a powerful and passionate expression of the Cold War.  Bowie's sojourn in Berlin was a dynamic and fruitful period for him, during which he recorded two of his own albums ('Low', '"Heroes"') and two solo records for Iggy Pop ('The Idiot' and 'Lust for Life').  Of the three collaborations with Brian Eno that make up his Berlin Trilogy, '"Heroes"' was the only one that was recorded entirely in Berlin.  Hansa Tonstudio was in West Berlin near the Berlin Wall.  Co-producer Tony Visconti remembers: "This was clearly an ex-war zone and now it was an international boundry, which was really scary.  We recorded five hundred feet from barbed wire, and a tall tower where you could see gun turrets, with foreign soldiers looking at us with binoculars...Everything said we shouldn't be making a record here."

The sessions featured Bowie on vocals, keyboards, guitars, saxophone, koto, and background vocals; Robert Fripp on lead guitar; Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar; Brian Eno on synthesisers, keyboards, and guitar treatments; George Murray on bass; Dennis Davis on drums and percussion; and Tony Visconti and Antonia Maass on backing vocals.  Bowie co-produced with Visconti who co-engineered with Colin Thurston.   Bowie went into the project with no complete songs, working them out in an expressionistic, improvisational process in the studio.  The title drew inspiration from the song 'Hero' by the German band Neu!, whose guitarist Michael Rother was asked to guest on the sessions; but, due to a mistake with the translator, it did not work out.  Fripp recorded his transcendent guitar part for the title track in the large ballroom jumping back and forth between two marks on the floor to indicate where each chord would create a feedback loop.  The three different takes were combined in the final cut.  

Like with 'Low', the new album followed the pattern of side one involving more structured songs with vocals and side two consisting mostly of experimental instrumentals.  Bowie compares '"Heroes"'  to it's predecessor:  "It's louder and harder and played with more energy in a way. But lyrically it seems far more psychotic. By now I was living full time in Berlin so my own mood was good. Buoyant even. But those lyrics come from a nook in the unconscious. Still a lot of house cleaning going on I feel...A couple were very definitely first and only takes. I think the rest were probably run at two or more times until the feel was right. With such great musicians the notes were never in doubt so we looked at 'feel' as being the priority."

'"Heroes"' thirty-five in the US, twenty-two in Austria, fifteen in the New Zealand, thirteen in Norway and Sweden, six in Australia, and three in the UK.  Like with Iggy Pop's 'The Idiot', the album cover was inspired by Heckel's painting Roquairol.  Bowie considers that his Berlin period "really captured unlike anything else in that time, a sense of yearning for a future that we all knew would never come to pass."  








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"Heroes" was co-composed with Eno.  The single made its way to twenty-four in the UK, nineteen in Austria, and eight in Ireland.  The song was inspired by Tony Visconti and Antonia Maass kissing by the Wall.  Bowie admits:  "I’m allowed to talk about it now. I wasn’t at the time. I always said it was a couple of lovers by the Berlin Wall that prompted the idea. Actually, it was Tony Visconti and his girlfriend. Tony was married at the time. And I could never say who it was. But I can now say that the lovers were Tony and a German girl that he’d met whilst we were in Berlin. I did ask his permission if I could say that. I think possibly the marriage was in the last few months, and it was very touching because I could see that Tony was very much in love with this girl, and it was that relationship which sort of motivated the song."




I, I will be kingAnd you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day
And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we're lovers, and that is that
Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, 
just for one day
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever
What d'you say?
I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing,
nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes, 
just for one day
I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day
I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns shot above our heads
(over our heads)
And we kissed, 
as though nothing could fall
(nothing could fall)
And the shame was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes, 
just for one day
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be Heroes
We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying, 
then you better not stay
But we could be safer, 
just for one day
Oh-oh-oh-ohh, oh-oh-oh-ohh, 
just for one day




In 1987, Bowie performed the song in Berlin by the Wall:  "I’ll never forget that. It was one of the most emotional performances I’ve ever done. I was in tears. They’d backed up the stage to the wall itself so that the wall was acting as our backdrop. We kind of heard that a few of the East Berliners might actually get the chance to hear the thing, but we didn’t realize in what numbers they would. And there were thousands on the other side that had come close to the wall. So it was like a double concert where the wall was the division. And we would hear them cheering and singing along from the other side. God, even now I get choked up. It was breaking my heart. I’d never done anything like that in my life, and I guess I never will again. When we did “Heroes” it really felt anthemic, almost like a prayer. However well we do it these days, it’s almost like walking through it compared to that night, because it meant so much more.
That’s the town where it was written, and that’s the particular situation that it was written about. It was just extraordinary. We did it in Berlin last year as well, and there’s no other city I can do that song in now that comes close to how it’s received. This time, what was so fantastic is that the audience—it was the Max Schmeling Hall, which holds about 10-15,000—half the audience had been in East Berlin that time way before. So now I was face-to-face with the people I had been singing it to all those years ago. And we were all singing it together. Again, it was powerful. Things like that really give you a sense of what performance can do. They happen so rarely at that kind of magnitude. Most nights I find very enjoyable. These days, I really enjoy performing. But something like that doesn’t come along very often, and when it does, you kind of think, “Well, if I never do anything again, it won’t matter.”



German version "Helden"













"Beauty and the Beast" 






Visconti says the lyrics for "Joe the Lion" were written and recorded  "in less than an hour".  Bowie recalls:  "Most of my vocals were first takes, some written as I sang. Most famously 'Joe the Lion' I suppose. I would put the headphones on, stand at the mike, listen to a verse, jot down some key words that came into mind then take. Then I would repeat the same process for the next section etc. It was something that I learnt from working with Iggy and I thought a very effective way of breaking normality in the lyric."

"Blackout"






"Moss Garden" 







"The Secret Life of Arabia"






'"Heroes"' 
  full album:





All lyrics written by David Bowie; all music composed by Bowie, except where noted.

Side one
1. "Beauty and the Beast"   3:32
2. "Joe the Lion"   3:05
3. ""Heroes"" (Bowie, Brian Eno) 6:07
4. "Sons of the Silent Age"   3:15
5. "Blackout"   3:50
Side two
6. "V-2 Schneider"   3:10
7. "Sense of Doubt"   3:57
8. "Moss Garden" (Bowie, Eno) 5:03
9. "Neuköln" (Bowie, Eno) 4:34
10. "The Secret Life of Arabia" (Bowie, Eno, Carlos Alomar) 3:46