David Bowie Performs an Ethereal Acoustic Version of “Heroes,” with a Bottle Cap Strapped to His Shoe, Keeping the Beat (1996)

Not long ago I stum­bled upon this pret­ty won­der­ful video of David Bowie play­ing an acoustic ver­sion of “Heroes,” one of my favorite songs, and I thought I’d quick­ly share it today. Why wait?

Appear­ing at Neil Young’s annu­al Bridge School Ben­e­fit con­cert in Octo­ber 1996, Bowie gives us a stripped-down ver­sion of the mov­ing song he co-wrote with Bri­an Eno in 1977. Flanked by Reeves Gabrels on gui­tar and Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, Bowie strums his acoustic gui­tar. All the while, he taps his foot, let­ting a bot­tle cap, taped to his shoe, assist in cre­at­ing a per­cus­sive beat. It’s all kept ele­gant­ly sim­ple. Hope you enjoy.

Dona­tions to The Bridge School, which helps chil­dren over­come severe speech and phys­i­cal impair­ments through the use of tech­nol­o­gy, can be made here.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

David Bowie & Bri­an Eno’s Col­lab­o­ra­tion on “Warsza­wa” Reimag­ined in a Com­ic Ani­ma­tion

Watch David Byrne Lead a Mas­sive Choir in Singing David Bowie’s “Heroes”

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

David Bowie’s 100 Must Read Books