by the artist. (1967) Lyrics Heroes tells the story of two lovers, one from East Berlin and one from West Berlin. Under constant risk of death, they dream of freedom, swimming with dolphins. Like fellow album tracks "Beauty and the Beast" and "Joe the Lion", the song, at its core, represents two opposing forces: the couple's love for each other, and a sense that the Berlin Wall will separate them. Blurt magazine's Robert Dean Lurie analyses it as a "clear nod" to the divided city of Berlin Bowie lived in at the time. The first verse is from the point of view of the man who stresses unity, while the second describes the couple's explicit love and affection for each other. Perone contends that the instrumental passages separating the third verse, wherein the narrator wishes his lover could "swim like the dolphins", represents a transition in the story. The fourth verse is a reiteration of the first, albeit Bowie sings an octave higher and in a near-scream. In the fifth and final verse, the narrator recalls standing and kissing by the Wall while guards fired bullets above their heads. Perone states that this moment captures the sense the narrator's love can "overcome anything" and, as dolphins can freely swim as they wish, the proclamation that "we can be heroes" "gets well beyond anything the listener might have anticipated at the start of the piece". Nicholas Pegg and Thomas Jerome Seabrook argue that Heroes is not the "feelgood anthem" it is often interpreted as. According to Bowie, the quotation marks in the title were intended to express "a dimension of irony" on the otherwise romantic or triumphant words and music. Describing the song, he stated it is about "facing reality and standing up to it", about achieving "a sense of compassion" and "deriving some joy from the very simple pleasure of being alive". Likewise, Pegg contests the song contains underlying dark themes that juxtapose its uplifting chord sequence and delirious vocal, such as "you can be mean, and I'll drink all the time", which is "hardly the most promisingly heroic statement", while the repeated announcement of "nothing will keep us together" asserts that time is short. Additionally, the pronouncement that the narrator wants the relationship to last "just for one day" harkens back to the dark lyrics of "The Bewlay Brothers" (1971) and represents a shift from the Nietzschean "supermen" themes