So, the 'X Factor' contestants are going to do a cover of the David Bowie song '"Heroes"' for the Help For Heroes charity. For the purposes of this blog I'm going to ignore the fact that it will be terrible, and they will no doubt ruin a classic song. I'm going to disregard my hatred for Simon Cowell. I will overlook the issue of whether a charity like Help For Heroes should even exist (shouldn't the government be giving them compensation as they are their employers?). It's just a bad choice of song for the X Factor to do.
It seems as though Simon Cowell, as he drank his morning cup of brimstone (sorry, impartiality returning now), simply Googled "song+hero+famous artist". A previous X Factor song for said charity was 'Hero' by Mariah Carey. This makes sense. The song (while terrible) is about the fact there is heroic potential in all of us, so what the choice of song was basically saying is that we should support the people who show that heroism. Fair enough. Now, '"Heroes"' is a different matter. For a start, if I ignore good grammar for a second, the song is called "Heroes". Not Heroes. If 'Friends' has taught us anything it's that quotation marks mean sarcasm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knlh3CgXI6g). Without opening a moral can of worms over whether killing innocent Palestinian and Iraqi people makes you a hero (hey, I'll admit some of them ARE heroes, like the ones who get their legs blown off saving their friends) is Cowell trying to be sarcastic in calling them heroes? Does he think the charity is Help For "Heroes"? Choosing to cover a song without even understanding the title is foolish in the extreme.
The second point is the song. Yes, you know the meaning of the actual song. Now, of course, the 'X Factor' contestants will perform the shortened single version but I'll get to that in a minute. Does Cowelzebub (sorry!) know what the song is actually about? For anyone who doesn't know, it's the story of two lovers kissing in the shadow of the Berlin wall, despite the oppression of the time. It has nothing to DO with soldiers, if anything it's against soldiers for example :
"I can remember
Standing by the wall
And the guns shot above our heads
And we kissed
As though nothing could fall
And the shame was on the other side"
Do the soldiers shooting at the lovers mentioned in the song sound like heroes to you? Because what I'd take from those lyrics is that the soldiers are the villains of the piece. And the thing is these lines are in the single version so the 'X Factor' singers will be performing these lines without any sense of irony. The song mentions oppressive soldiers at various other points too :
"Though nothing will
Drive them away
We can beat them
Just for one day"
"We're nothing
And nothing will help us"
Even ignoring the fact that these lyrics depict soldiers (at the Berlin wall, so not even Nazis, Allied soldiers) as being oppressive and unemotional, "Nothing will drive them away"? "We're nothing and nothing will help us"? Uplifting. Even the more inspiring sounding lyrics such as "I wish I could swim, like the dolphins can swim" aren't all they seem. Surely these are about escape?
Another point is that the lovers in the song are not heroes either. Yes, they are the ones who can be "heroes just for one day" but consider for example :
"You can be mean
And I
I'll drink all the time
Because we're lovers"
The people in the song are passionate, and unpredictable, heroes one minute and "heroes" the next. Is this the image that the cover is trying to project of soldiers? I think not.
So, to sum up, this is a song in which no-one is a hero, and fighting is a futility. "Our Boys" ((c) The Sun) must be so proud.
