Inspired by the sight of Bowie’s producer/engineer Tony Visconti embracing one of Bowie’s backing vocalists by the Berlin Wall, the song tells the story of two lovers, one from East and one from West Berlin. Bowie’s performance of “Heroes” on June 6, 1987 at the German Reichstag in West Berlin was considered a catalyst to the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall.[4][5][6] Following Bowie’s death in January 2016, the German government thanked Bowie for “helping to bring down the Wall”, adding “you are now among Heroes”.[7]
“she didn’t think it was interesting to talk about collaboration in East Germany, because everybody collaborated in East Germany. So I asked her about dissidence instead: When all of your friends, all of your teachers, and all of your employers are firmly behind the system, how do you find the courage to oppose it? In her answer, Birthler resisted the use of the word courage; just as people can adapt to corruption or immorality, she told me, they can slowly learn to object as well. The choice to become a dissident can easily be the result of “a number of small decisions that you take”—to absent yourself from the May Day parade, for example, or not to sing the words of the party hymn. And then, one day, you find yourself irrevocably on the other side. Often, this process involves role models. You see people whom you admire, and you want to be like them. It can even be “selfish.” “You want to do something for yourself,” Birthler said, “to respect yourself.””
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
He uploaded this as a birthday present to me, though neither he nor I knew it.
Listening to him be honest and scared and insecure took me back to my earliest time as a fan. I was 17. I had moved out and was trying to finish high school and had a mostly bare room in a cheap apartment with two other people who would eventually (rightly) kick me out.
In that mostly bare room:
– a foam pad to sleep on
– a pile of clothes
– a bicycle
– a cheap stereo with turntable and maybe 20 records, including the one I played the most that fall, replicas
