The backing track was recorded fully before lyrics were written; Bowie and Eno added synthesiser overdubs while Robert Fripp contributed guitar.

Released in edited form by RCA Records on 23 September 1977 as the album's lead single, initial reviews for the song were mostly positive, with some welcoming it as a classic addition to the artist's catalogue.

After completing his work co-producing Iggy Pop's Lust for Life (1977) and various promotional events, David Bowie spent a few weeks devising ideas and concepts with multi-instrumentalist Brian Eno for his next studio album.

Eno brought in his EMS Synthi AKS, a synthesiser built in a briefcase, using its joystick, oscillator knobs and noise filter to create a "shuddering, chattering effect [that] slowly builds up and gets more and more obvious towards the end".

[4] He buried Davis's kick drum, finding it "seemed to plod" the track and becoming "more energetic without it", and elevated Murray's bassline, which Alomar augmented on guitar in a higher register.

[10] As he stared outside the studio window, he witnessed Visconti and singer Antonia Maass kiss in close proximity to the Berlin Wall, which he used as the basis for the lyric.

[15] Author James E. Perone finds the song a "great example of contemporary pop music", balancing early-1970s progressive rock on the synthesisers to the "avant-garde tone color manipulations" from Eno.

[16] According to Bowie, the track was "a combination of Brian's piano technique and [mine] which are both dastardly", turning into a reworking of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" (1967), a song long admired by the artist.

[11] 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.

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.

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".

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 of Bowie's earlier works into the realm of heroism.

[5][10] Regarding the themes, Lurie stated:[17] "'Heroes'" is more akin to alchemy: We may be average and regular in the present moment, but we have the potential, at any time, for heroic thought and action – even if only for one day.

"[25] On 19 October, Bowie appeared on BBC's Top of the Pops for the first time since 1973,[15] performing "'Heroes'" using a new backing track featuring Visconti on bass and Sean Mayes on keyboards.

[35] The single's release in a variety of languages and lengths achieved what NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray called "a collector's wet dream".

[54] Ira Robbins went further in Crawdaddy magazine, hailing the song as Bowie's best commitment to plastic in three years, praising the instrumentation and vocal performance, and highlighted Eno's contributions among the track's best features.

[57] Writing in Hit Parader, American musician and author Patti Smith praised "'Heroes'" as a "pure" and "wonderful" track that "exposes us to our most precious and private dilemma".

Analysing his vocal, he wrote: "Starting with an almost conversational tone, by the end of the song he's turning in a performance that could almost be called operatic, yet still achingly, passionately human.

[e] O'Leary argues that the edit weakens the song as the buildup to the final verses is shortened, noting that Bowie's "heroic" vocal starts roughly two minutes earlier than the full album version.

He recognised the track as a "weird, ambiguous song" with an "uplifting-sporting-montage-soundtrack ubiquity" that turns six minutes of "pulsing electronic noise, howling guitars and screamed vocals" into "an all-purpose air-punching anthem".

[120] Outside his tours, "'Heroes'" was performed at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 by Bowie, his former guitarist Mick Ronson and the surviving members of Queen: Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon.

[5] Artists who have covered the song on stage or in the studio include Oasis,[122] the Smashing Pumpkins, Travis, Arcade Fire and Blondie, whose 1980 live version featured Fripp on guitar.

[124] The Wallflowers' cover was positively received,[125] with Billboard editor Larry Flick writing that it "beautifully illuminates the heart-tugging quality of the lyrics" but noting the lead singer Jakob Dylan failed to replicate the "irony and edge" of Bowie's version.

[129] The Canadian Children's Opera Company performed a cover of "Heroes" at the start of the 2000 National Hockey League awards ceremony, held shortly after the end of the 1999-2000 season.

[5] The same year, the series 7 finalists of The X Factor released a version for the Help for Heroes charity, which reached number one on the Irish, Scottish and UK Singles Chart.

[131][132][133] Regarding this version, Pegg writes that it introduced "a new generation to David Bowie by subjecting one of his greatest songs to the anodyne arrangements, Eurovision key-changes and sub-Mariah Carey karaoke yodeling which are the core ingredients of The X Factor's ongoing mission to eradicate real music from planet earth".

[135][136] Depeche Mode subsequently released a cover to commemorate the song's 40th anniversary, with Gahan stating, "Bowie is the one artist who I've stuck with since I was in my early teens.

[140] Bowie allowed "'Heroes'" to be used in advertising campaigns throughout his lifetime,[5] from ads for cell phones, cars and softwares, to HBO Latin American programming, musical video games and sporting events.

[5] On television, the song has made appearances in Glee (2012), the US version of The Tomorrow People (2014) and Regular Show (2017),[142] and on soundtrack albums for Heroes and Ninja Assassin (2009).

[147] In 2007, a cover version of "Heroes" was made available as downloadable content for the Rock Band music video game series, as part of the "David Bowie Track Pack 01".