“‘Heroes’”

I am obsessing over the song “‘Heroes’” today. (Probably because I just read about it in Bowie in Berlin, and because it’s the best song from Bowie’s late 70s period.)

I am normally bored out of my mind when people talk about production techniques, but this one actually has a fascinating story behind it. It was recorded in this huge ballroom in West Berlin near the Wall that was built in the early 1900s and had been used for events during the Weimar Republic and later by the Nazis before being turned into a recording studio. It was much bigger than a normal studio and had a natural cavernous echoing effect, so Tony Visconti, the producer, figured out a way to put microphones around the room to capture Bowie’s voice as it reflected through the space. He also came up with this production innovation that I don’t entirely understand that means that some of the microphones didn’t start recording until Bowie’s voice reached a certain level, which meant that it could record correctly in one take as Bowie’s voice started out very low and calm and eventually rose to an epic wail. So when you’re hearing Bowie’s vocal, you’re not just hearing his voice but the sound of the room he’s in. I love this–I always realized he sounded unique on that song, but I didn’t know why. It’s not just some Pro Tools effect, it’s the sound of that place and all its history.

I’ve read so many interesting stories about this song. Like that Bowie waited until the very end to give it vocals and may have been planning to leave it as an instrumental (!). And that he apparently thought about it in advance but wrote the lyrics on the spot, recording as he went. And that the guitar virtuoso, Robert Fripp, basically got off a plane, walked into the studio travel-tired, played along to the songs without even hearing them first (having been instructed by Bowie to play the kind of messy improvisations that he’d never put on his own albums), and… that’s what they used on the album. And it sounds amazing!

The other thing that’s really fascinating about this song is that everyone seems to have a different opinion about how ironic it is. Some say that it’s a dark story about a couple deluding themselves about their doomed relationship, while others say it’s a straightforward anthem about individuals overcoming an oppressive society. I guess I’d fall in the middle and say that it starts out ironic but becomes powerfully sincere by the end. I think it’s about living in the moment–that the world is a mess and that we as individuals are a mess, that everything is transient and endings are inevitable, but that the great moments of connection and meaning in our lives somehow transcend that and achieve their own form of immortality because they are so meaningful to us.

But that’s the nifty thing about art; it means different things to different people. I mean, I almost think that the song was meant to be entirely ironic, but that it became inspirational because so many people saw it that way–the audience interpretation gave it another layer of meaning.

The song has a fascinating and sometimes contradictory mythology that adds even more layers. Bowie’s own marriage was crumbling–was it about him and Angela? (There are bits that seem to refer to him in 1977, drinking all the time and not knowing how to swim.) He’s also referenced stories and paintings it was supposedly inspired by (see Bowie in Berlin). And there’s the story of him seeing a pair of lovers meeting beneath the Berlin Wall from his position in the studio, either once or many times, who may have been Tony Visconti and backup singer Antonia Maass having an affair, and who may not have existed at all since it’s debatable whether you can even see the Wall from inside the studio. And then there’s the sense that it’s not really about anyone specific but is about the human impact of the Berlin Wall, of the aftereffects of WWII, of the Cold War. It simultaneously has a very specific feel of Berlin in 1977 and a very general sense of human beings caught up in the movement of history.

Anyway, if you have only heard the shortened single version, listen to the full version here. I’m sad that it took me so long to hear it.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.