Riffiter on "Heroes" (2017 Remaster)

For 26 years Bowie said this was about two strangers kissing by the Berlin Wall. It was his producer, Tony Visconti, married at the time, and Antonia Maass, the singer who translated it into German as "Helden". Knowing that doesn't shrink the song. It explains the vocal: Visconti had one track left and three microphones, the far two gated to open only when Bowie got loud, so the last verse is a man shouting across a room at a wall he could see from the window. A #24 single in 1977 that never touched the US Hot 100. It took his death in 2016 to get it to #12.