Nico started a successful career as a model in Berlin and Paris, studied acting at Lee Strasberg's New York Actor Studio. She then became part of the Swinging London scene, and had a short relationship with The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones and she recorded her first record in London in 1965, the single I'm Not Saying/The Last Mile, produced by Jimmy Page, for Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham's label Immediate Records. Thanks to Jones she met Andy Warhol in New York City and became part of Warhol's Factory, and Warhol introduced her to the Rock band The Velvet Underground, with whom she recorded the album "The Velvet Underground & Nico", featuring the legendary banana cover designed by Andy Warhol. The album has been named by numerous publications as one of the top 100 albums of all time, and is often considered one of history's 10 most influential albums by critics.
Nico later recorded several solo albums, including the folksy Chelsea Girl in 1967, followed by original albums such as The Marble Index and Desertshore, which were much darker and avant garde in style. She released several more albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including The End..., but died in 1988 from a cerebral hemorrhage after falling from her bike in Ibiza, Spain. She is buried in Berlin, next to her mother.
Solo studio discography:
1967 - Chelsea Girl
1969 - The Marble Index
1970 - Desertshore
1974 - The End...
1981 - Drama of Exile
1985 - Camera Obscura
Live discography:
1974 - June 1, 1974 (with Kevin Ayers, John Cale, and Brian Eno)
1986 - Behind the Iron Curtain
1986 - Live Heroes
1986 - Nico in Tokyo
1989 - Hanging Gardens
1993 - Do or Die!
1994 - Heroine
1994 - Fata Morgana
1994 - Live in Pécs 1985
2000 - In Europe: Do or Die, Diary 1982
2001 - Janitor of Lunacy
2003 - 1972-01-29: Le Bataclan, Paris, France (with Lou Reed and John Cale)
2007 - All Tomorrow's Parties: Live
Heroes
Nico Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I will be King
And you
You will be Queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be heroes
Just for one day
Just for one day
You
You can be mean
And I
I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers
And that is a fact
Yes, we're lovers
And that is that
Though nothing
Will keep us together
We could steal time
Just for one day
We can be heroes
For ever and ever
What d'you say?
I
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
The dolphins can swim
Though nothing
Nothing will keep us together
We can beat them
Forever and ever
Oh, we can be heroes
Just for one day
I
I will be King
And you
You will be Queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be heroes
Just for one day
We can be us
Just for one day
I
I can remember
Standing by the Wall
The guns shot above our heads
And we kissed
As though nothing could fall
And the shame was on the other side
We can beat them
Forever and ever
We can be heroes
Just for one day
We can be heroes
We can be heroes
The song “Heroes” by Nico is a melancholic love song that speaks about the desire to escape from reality and to be free, just for one day. The opening lines of the song - “I will be King, and you will be Queen”- set the tone for an imaginative escape to a world that is free from societal constraints. However, the lyrics also hint towards the impossibility of capturing such a moment forever as nothing can keep them together. The lines “Though nothing will keep us together, we could steal time just for one day” and “We can be heroes for ever and ever” reinforce this sentiment - the fact that their love is fleeting and brief but that they can hold onto it for as long as possible.
The second verse of the song continues with the theme of the impermanence of love but also adds a hint of desperation. The lyrics “You can be mean, and I'll drink all the time ‘cause we're lovers, and that is a fact” are a testament to the singer’s willingness to put up with bad behavior just to stay with their loved one. However, the following lines “Though nothing will keep us together, we can beat them forever and ever” demonstrate a determination to overcome whatever obstacles come their way, even if it is just for one day.
The final verse of the song is perhaps the most powerful, as it references the Berlin Wall and the political turmoil that was present during the Cold War. The lyrics “I can remember standing by the Wall, the guns shot above our heads, and we kissed as though nothing could fall” serve both as a reminder of the political division that existed in the world at the time, and the desire to break free from such divisions. In the end, the song leaves us with a feeling of longing and yearning for something that is just out of reach.
Line by Line Meaning
I will be King
I will be a leader
And you will be Queen
And you will be a leader too
Though nothing will drive them away
But there will always be opposing forces
We can be heroes, just for one day
We can rise above our struggles, if only for a moment
You can be mean
You may show your dark side
And I'll drink all the time
And I may indulge in destructive habits
'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
But we are in love, that's undeniable
Yes, we're lovers, and that is that
And we accept that truth
Though nothing will keep us together
Despite the odds against us
We could steal time, just for one day
We can take advantage of any opportunity
We can be heroes, for ever and ever
We can rise above our struggles for as long as we can
What d'you say?
Are you willing to join me?
I wish you could swim, like the dolphins
I wish you could be as free as the dolphins
The dolphins can swim
They have the freedom to escape their struggles
Though nothing will keep us together
Despite the odds against us
We can beat them, forever and ever
We can overcome our struggles, always
Oh, we can be heroes, just for one day
We can rise above our struggles, even if it's just for a moment
I will be King
I will be a leader
And you will be Queen
And you will be a leader too
Though nothing will drive them away
But there will always be opposing forces
We can be heroes, just for one day
We can rise above our struggles, if only for a moment
We can be us, just for one day
We can be ourselves, even if it's just for a moment
I can remember, standing by the Wall
I remember being oppressed by a force beyond our control
The guns shot above our heads
We were right in the line of fire
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall
But we still found love in the midst of our struggles
And the shame was on the other side
The other side was the one causing us pain and oppression
We can beat them, forever and ever
We can overcome our struggles, always
We can be heroes, just for one day
We can rise above our struggles, if only for a moment
We can be heroes
We can rise above and overcome our struggles
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Freibank Musikverlags und vermarktungs GmbH, BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Royalty Network, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Bluewater Music Corp., Songtrust Ave, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Actual Music, S.L.
Written by: Brian Peter George Eno, David Bowie
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Aleksey Calvin
I love how she makes "I wish you could swim" sound like a low-key scolding. "Like dolphins.. Dolphins can swim!"
**Why can't You?!.. Lover... too learn to swim?"
In the meanwhile, Nico shows Us what it means to swim and to drown at the same time. Whether or not the archetype "tragic hero" reduces lived and artistic complexity to a myth, Nico's emphasis on "Heroes" and what it represents really helps show the song as an existential manifesto. As if a life-grounded assurance that no matter how dark things get, sublimity can be mere musical moments away, "Heroes" serves as a real empowering lighthouse for many of us. And Nico brings the song into certain places where its author, Bowie, couldn't quite take it (or fully go) himself. That he couldn't is probably for the "best" (however rare and few such no-go places may have been for Bowie), at least for those of us who value his long and varied career.
Conversely, as an artist, Nico proved to carry forth (to model, to weave, write) a somewhat different story than Bowie. Neither greater nor lesser than him, mind you; not that those things can be reliably qualified anyhow. But merely Different. And rising to certain self-singular distinct forms of artistic (maybe even "historic") neccessity. Among its elements this video, this performance, currents Nico embodies how one can simultaneously defy pain and also surrender to pain, to embrace pain and also to transcend pain through art. Her story and her work intertwine to show us how these (and other) strange paradoxes become endemic to a profoundly unprecedented relation between individual and society, between life and art. Nico's image, words, story, music, and voice become a meshed surface refracting modern struggles as such, speaking of and to public celebrity cultures and their pitfalls, as well as to the challenges of private meaning-making. Elsewise, Nico represents a figure who channels beauty and defies beauty, but ultimately helps expand what beauty can even Mean, how it can resonate with and reflect us, diffusely refracting our own struggles. Through art and life, against the abyssal shapes and borders of fears, confusions, and struggles, through perseverence and brilliance, she does come through in so many ways.
And I know people can say all kinds of "could have, should have been/done" about her (and they do), but I think that by, in some sense, refusing to see the integral meaning (and on some level even conjoined neccessities) of the whole extreme-splicing and complex context of her work, the whole road of her life, passings over borders, deserts, indexes, and shores, such voices don't fully honor Nico and her legacy, as it continues to emerge in the decades following her passing. Nor do these reductive or wishful voices fully account for the rare type of artistic strength she exhibits. Granted, I don't want to fall into the trap of over-romanticizing junkie life. Such existence can be an anxious or soft horror, scraping by and preoccupied with mere day-to-days. And, maybe worst of all for some artists, this survival-focus can be a numbed maze of repetition, routines, an invisible sinking, like some bizzare inversion of middle-class lifestyle maintainance.
Why would someone put up with such life for long? Well, for some people it, oddly enough feels more grounding than the prescribed normative "rat race". Beyond that, any decent answer would be neccessarily more complex than what any comment, or even any book, could address. And I can't make definitive claims about Nico specifically. But, most summarily, I tend to think that for some sensitive or pain-ridden people, especially some artists, such forms of addiction can stem from "everything" becoming simply "too much" to cope, to remain productive to continue swimming forth (like dolphins), letting oneself love and create, in spite of every entropic weight and emotional/situational whirlpool. In some cases, opiate habits can be compared to desperately trying to "autotune" the whole context of life. In other cases, it can feel like the only way to keep down all the chaos, to focus on what's meaningful. Of course, the habit eventually starts eroding the very things one is trying to serve and guard with its aid.
And as a former junkie, recovered four years, I'm not talking through indirect conjectures or pulling on stereotypes, like many. Many of my artist/musician friends have gone through similar journeys. Some were lost irreversibly. Dead in their 20s. And not in some romantic/glorified way. Most of those lost were just starting out on their paths, and haven't yet done most of what they "could have" in this world.
So, I by no means want to downplay the danger, the challenge of navigating chemicals' despoting entrapment, of learning how to start swimming from under it. Nor the impactful loss of those drowned. The fact that Nico managed to do so much at various stages makes her the exception precisely through the strength of her perseverence and will and brilliance. Which may have been deepened by having to deal with so much struggle/pain. But it's only through moments of overcoming, of reaching and rising out of the abysses, not thanks to abysses themselves. So, be careful around drugs, kids. It's all so complex. Binary categories and moralizing judgements rarely help (as addiction fuels, bad faith/self-shame are second only to pain/overwhelm/PTSD).
I think opiate addiction is just an extreme form of a much deeper and more widespread general crisis of meaning and loss of faith in Future (and, as such, questioning even one's Identity. Imposter syndrome being increasingly prevalent now in 2019). Yet, those who are most challenges with this can also be the same people who are on the "frontlines" and in the "trenches", fighting towards some possible solution of a much more universal crisis and impasse. The "Avant-Garde" began as a military metaphor, refferring to the Heroic soldiers on the front lines. And confronting a very concentrated version of what many "regular" modern persons experience and struggle with.
YouTube comments sections highlight to me how some struggled artists often get talked about/related to more or less like Christian martyrs, as if absorbing some of our shared pain into her journey, and through her art giving it a place to "know", hear itself refracted. "I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are", the artist says unto the world, perhaps forlornly smiling, perhaps already recognizing that no mirror could authentically hold the world without eventually shattering.
So, please don't discredit those who've struggled or still struggle. And especially artists. To really put oneself face to face with the world while subverting its idealizing filters can be a heavy somber duty. I might even compare such an artist to that team of divers in Chernobyl who volunteered to go in and help diffuse an even bigger catastrophe, even while knowing the implication of what they would absorb into themselves. They too could swim. So, don't discredit struggled artists.
At the same time, please romanticize responsibly! Don't reduce the scopes of it all to some trite idea of surface glamour, whether heroic or decadent. Nico was not always "fun" or "inspiring" to be around, I'm certain But she would come through. And there's so much legacy for us to salvage and build from. So, in that spirit, may Nico help each and all of us find our own vision and strength to pursue it, in spite of anything. Art is in itself a faith. Dolphins communicate meanings through sonar vibrations, if I recall correctly. And dolphins Can swim. And dolphins can sing also. And it's so much more than just entertainment, more complex than either waste or success. And it's so important.
Tulip
Nico doing Heroes in this most vacuous, souless, echoic & frighteningly hopeless tonal poem...is beautiful & haunting! I mean this in the best possible way!
Slater Slater
She looks scary as hell. Smacked out of her mind.
PuNk JuNk ©
Maybe best cover ever made. Live!
Skullkan6
She lived in Berlin... so yeah wow for her.
J.C
3:58 when she goes into her higher register and delivers that verse, the guitarist looks at her for a minute like “Oh shit, this is a genius”
J.C
“I drink ALL the time” I know she felt that in her soul as do I, one of the greatest performances, this is what I call music.
Gabriel Dinelli
The combination of a band giving its very blood and sweat, with Nico standing still barely moving, as if she couldn't care less about anything, her strangely seductive voice, and her EYES... my God... I'm lost for words, I can just FEEL it all.
Karendal Sadik
No Botox making those eyes huge boys and girls. I read she actually tried to make herself look ugly. She wanted to be known for something else besides her looks.
leitros
I hope that audience appreciates just how lucky they have been.
xtentac¡on / An0nYm0us
leitros hi