"It was one of the most emotional performances I've ever done. I was in tears." How David Bowie's Heroes became his most life-changing single

David Bowie on a balcony at the Dorchester Hotel, London, October 20 1977.

One afternoon in July 1977, David Bowie was looking out of the window of Hansa Studio in Berlin when he noticed a couple kissing near the Berlin Wall.

“I always said it was a couple of lovers by the Wall that prompted the idea for Heroes,” Bowie told Classic Rock in 2015, explaining its meaning. “Actually, it was [Bowie producer] Tony Visconti and his girlfriend. Tony was married at the time, so I couldn’t talk about it. But I can now say that the lovers were Tony and a German girl [Antonia Maass] that he’d met while we were in Berlin. I think possibly his marriage was in the last few months. And it was very touching because I could see that Tony was very much in love with this girl, and it was that relationship which sort of motivated the song.”