Pop Song 550 of 1000 'Heroes' David Bowie 1977

Pop Song 550 of 1000 'Heroes' David Bowie 1977

MV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXgkuM2NhYI

"'Heroes'" tells the story of two lovers, one from East Berlin and one from West Berlin. Under constant risk of death, they dream of freedom, swimming with dolphins.[11] Like fellow album tracks "Beauty and the Beast" and "Joe the Lion", the song, at its core, represents two opposing forces: the couple's love for each other, and a sense that the Berlin Wall will separate them.[15] Blurt magazine's Robert Dean Lurie analyses it as a "clear nod" to the divided city of Berlin Bowie lived in at the time.[16] The first verse is from the point of view of the man who stresses unity, while the second describes the couple's explicit love and affection for each other. Perone contends that the instrumental passages separating the third verse, wherein the narrator wishes his lover could "swim like the dolphins", represents a transition in the story.[15] The fourth verse is a reiteration of the first, albeit Bowie sings an octave higher and in a near-scream. In the fifth and final verse, the narrator recalls standing and kissing by the Wall while guards fired bullets above their heads. Perone states that this moment captures the sense the narrator's love can "overcome anything" and, as dolphins can freely swim as they wish, the proclamation that "we can be heroes" "gets well beyond anything the listener might have anticipated at the start of the piece".
Although Bowie confirmed that the kiss between Visconti and Maass directly inspired the lyric, another source of inspiration included Otto Mueller's 1916 painting Lovers Between Garden Walls, which Bowie and Pop saw at Berlin's Brücke Museum. The painting depicts an embracing couple between two walls representing the brutality of World War I.[5] Bowie also revealed in the foreword of his wife Iman's 2001 book I Am Iman that Alberto Denti di Pirajno's 1956 short story A Grave for a Dolphin, which concerns a doomed love affair between an Italian soldier and a Somalian girl during World War II, provided inspiration.[5][10] According to Pegg, the destiny of the story's female protagonist is linked with that of a dolphin she swims with, and when she dies, so does the dolphin. Bowie further explained: "I thought it a magical and beautiful love story and in part it had inspired my song 'Heroes'."

Bowie is also recounted to have used events in his own life for the lyrics, such as his then-marital issues, alcoholism and his inability to swim ("I wish I could swim"). Furthermore, O'Leary notes that the phrase "I will be king, you will be queen" is taken directly from the traditional English folk song "Lavender's Blue".In the late 2010s, a story on the Italian Bowie website Blackstar revealed that artist Clare Shenstone, who Bowie met in 1969, had visited him during the summer he recorded "'Heroes'". The two spent a day walking along the Wall, which started, in her words, "with David asking me if I dreamed about him because he dreamed about me. I told him I had just had a beautiful dream about swimming with dolphin

I, I will be king
And 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