It was the unofficial anthem of the 2012 Olympic Games, inspired a Philip Glass symphony and became David Bowie's most popular song on the streaming service Spotify.
Now a new BBC documentary claims the song came about after a day Bowie spent with model, actress and artist Claire Shenstone, with whom he was in a relationship in the mid-1970s.
The notoriously enigmatic singer may have left more questions than answers on his latest album, "Blackstar"r, but the origins of 1977's "Heroes" were something fans considered settled: Bouvi consistently claimed that he wrote the song after seeing producer Toni Visconti hugging German singer Antonija Mas next to the Berlin Wall.
However, the documentary "Bouvi in Berlin" reveals how the song came about after spending time with Shenstone in the German capital, which inspired three of his best-known albums: "Low", "Heroes" and "Lodger". The documentary takes a fresh look at this oft-mythologized period, with Shenston Story telling Francis Whatley - who made the 2013 Bowie film Five Years - about their dating.
The pair had a "special day" according to Shenstone, who said the day began with her telling Bowie about a dream about swimming with dolphins, before going to an exhibition at a museum and moving to the east end of the city, the Guardian reports.
"We spent a couple of hours at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the guards were goose-stepping. We held hands tightly and just soaked it all in, it was such a powerful experience," says Shenstone, who then returned with Bowie to the West Side. .
"We were walking by the other side of the wall. There were spotlights and you could see the outlines of the guns and we were holding hands and he took my other hand and kissed me. It was beautiful," she recalled.
The description of that day echoes many of the lines from "Heroes," including the line, "I wish you could swim like dolphins swim," as Bouvi sings of how he remembers "standing by the wall and the guns, the gunshots over our heads. And we kissed , as if nothing can fall".
"I recognized it immediately. I knew what every word meant, and it described exactly, moment by moment, what that day was like," Shenstone says in the documentary.
She eventually decided to leave Berlin because she did not want to give up her artistic freedom and enter the world of tabloid attention and invasion of privacy. "By the time he wrote 'Heroes', I managed to explain to him that I would have to give up painting, my career, who I am. I wouldn't be me. I came back to London and when I heard 'Heroes', I understood that he thought it through and that he understood," she pointed out.
During his Berlin period, Bowie tried to live a relatively anonymous life and break free from his destructive cocaine addiction, which also inspired some of his chaotic songs while in Germany.
His creative partnerships with Iggy Pop, with whom he shared an apartment in Berlin, Berlin album co-producer Toni Visconti, and collaborator Brian Ino were often explored. However, the documentary "Bouvi in Berlin" focuses on three women in the singer's life: Shenstone, nightclub owner Romi Hag and former journalist Sara Rena Hine.
Shenstone's artistic career was extraordinary. She started out as a model, appearing at age 16 on the poster for Andy Warhol's 1966 film "Chelsea Girls," and went on to act in plays that traveled the world and became an artist who so impressed Francis Bacon that he invited her to paint his portrait.
Whatley calls her version of the story of the creation of "Heroes" "touching, romantic and completely believable", while admitting that there is no way to know for sure whether it is the ultimate truth.
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