You Are the ‘Heroes’ Bowie Sang About
Better read half-drunk with “Heroes” blasted out on speakers.
Perhaps one of humankind's triumphs is our welcoming embrace of the starman himself, Mr. Bowie. In times of bleakness, his presence has brought delight, and in our darkest hours, a strange and necessary light of hope.
And let me present to you his song that echoes more in today’s world, where many of us, hungry and restless, crave meaning. This is “Heroes” and you are the ones he sang for.
I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day
How many of us look in the mirror and see a clouded, stranger version of ourselves? Burdened by questions of what could have been. Like a person haunted by endless possibilities and fears, where everything might feel inadequate. We become our sharpest judge, silently questioning the path we’ve taken.
In times of uncertainty and rush, our value as human beings is mostly captured through the lens of output, visibility, and optimization — a plagued system that turns us into soulless units that leave true feelings behind.
Bowie’s “Heroes” feels almost radical today, yet it offers some kind of mystical critique of our lives. It is not composed to speak of permanent victory. Rather, it speaks of momentary defiance between two people.
Two souls that are both ordinary and vulnerable, with a daring hope of believing they can mean something in this nonsensical world. Like fireflies, they blink even under the darkest hours of harsh night.
And you, you can be mean
And I, I’ll drink all the time
’Cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we’re lovers, and that is that
Though nothing will keep us together
We could steal time just for one day
We can be heroes for ever and ever
What d’you say?
If there is one thing that makes lives this way, it’s modern capitalism, where things are promised to us for their limitless potential. Still, it demands something in return, some greater-than-life sacrifice of belittling our soul in exchange for a ‘victory’.
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What if the true ‘victory’ lies not in the hollowness of the world, but in the quiet, unsung purity of love between two souls? What if love is the ultimate prize that has been robbed by costing everything that makes us human?
To love in the time of capitalism is to realize that our loves for others have been filtered through muddy algorithms, and the meaning of it has been reduced to measurable assets.
Thus, sometimes I think the act of love itself is kind of embarrassing. Not because ‘love’ itself is embarrassing, but rather the world we live in has made sincerity feel naive.
You hold someone and wonder if you’re doing it the right way. If you’re merely performing it or embodying it. And you can’t always tell the difference. Even words of affection might feel like something straight out of a marketing campaign.
The optimization of things brought questions that are rather disrespectful to ‘love’ itself. We ask of our relationships the way we evaluate investment: is it giving? Is it sustainable? Those questions make love into something transactional. Somewhere in all those questions, the realness slips away.
In this numbed world, “Heroes” reminds us of something quiet yet dangerous: that just being, loving, feeling, in the face of all this machinery, is a form of resistance.
I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads)
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall)
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes, just for one day
Maybe the most radical thing you can do is just sit back and play this song for a while. Let the striking melodies rage against the world and intoxicate you.
And let yourself love someone without trying to fix them. To just be close without calculating the gain. To say, “I know this world is breaking us in quiet ways, but here I am, anyway. With you. Just for one day. Maybe that’s enough.”
In the end, “Heroes” is the kind of song that will make you feel big in waves of unprecedented attempts to make us small. So here’s to the ones who still believe in love that doesn’t sell, in moments that don’t scale, in being heroes just for one day.
And to the starman who showed us how. May you keep drifting through the cosmos, lighting up the dark between the voids and the worlds.
Rest easy, David Bowie.
