25 Years Since The Fall Of The Berlin Wall – David Bowie’s Heroes

Marking 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989), here’s David Bowie’s Heroes, a song I’ve often thought of as the greatest song U2 never wrote. This is in large part due to the soundscape created by producer Brian Eno who years later would go on to work with U2, but Heroes also predates the scope of some of U2’s most ambitious works like Bad (1984), Where The Streets Have No Name (1987) and Moment Of Surrender (2009).

 

From 1977 and from the album of the same name, the Heroes LP was part of Bowie’s famous Berlin trilogy of albums – Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979). Having moved to the city as a respite from what he knew was an unsustainable lifestyle in LA, Bowie reveled in a degree of anonymity and freedom he hadn’t felt in years.

Lyrically, the song Heroes tells the story of two lovers and the backdrop of the Berlin Wall is directly mentioned. Best appreciated in its full six-minute version so that Bowie’s wailing vocals are a crescendo rather than an opening bombast, here is the always phenomenal Heroes:

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