‘Heroes’ written by Brian Eno and David Bowie, produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, it was recorded in July and August 1977, and released on 23 September 1977. A product of Bowie’s “Berlin” period, the track was not a huge hit in the UK or US at the time, but has gone on to become one of Bowie’s 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”.

The song has received numerous accolades since its release, as seen with its inclusion on lists ranking the ‘greatest songs of all time’ compiled by the 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”.

Recently there have been a couple of cover versions released, first Motörhead, then Depeche Mode. Below are just some of the great covers.

Motörhead

Depeche Mode

 Peter Gabriel

Oasis

The Wallflowers

The Script

Bloc Party

Bon Jovi

King Crimson

Lets see a short clip of Tony Visconti talking about the recording of the song. Being the original producer Visconti uses the original master tapes to separate the instruments and demonstrates how the song developed. This is a longer version of the interview that originally appeared in episode 2 of the BBC Four programme ‘Music Moguls – Melody Makers’.

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