Hero Worship by The B-52s

Album: The B-52's (1979)

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Songfacts®:

"Hero Worship" is the third track on the second side on the B-52s' self-titled debut album.

Cindy Wilson sings lead vocals on the song, while a friend of the band named Robert Waldrop wrote the lyrics (he also wrote the lyrics to "Roam"). In her interview with Songfacts, Wilson called this a "kind of punk song."
The song starts with the line, "Heroes falling to the ground," followed by "Hell's magnet" pulling Wilson down her knees to try to "please his idol eyes."

There's a twist that occurs there that can easily go unnoticed. The first line clearly indicates that it was multiple heroes falling to the ground, but this person Wilson is trying to please is always identified as a singular individual. So, either it's one of those many heroes or it's someone/something else entirely, including possibly the person or force that pulled them down in the first place.

Things get a little stranger as Wilson attempts to resuscitate this person, fails, and decides to "lie down beside him and idolize." The next verse, though, is when the song truly goes sideways, with Wilson singing that his lock of hair and the belt he wore are not enough, and then entreats God to give her his soul.

Comments: 4

K from ChicagoThis song is clearly about erectile dysfunction
Daria Hudson from PennsylvaniaI never heard it as "HEROES falling to the ground". I heard HE ROSE, falling to the ground. Never questioned hero as plural.
Justin from New HampshireThis is the single greatest vocal performance in the history of the B-52s. Cindy Wilson captured my soul.
Peter from OhioI read somewhere the song is about when John Lennon walked into a Caribbean island bar the B 52's were working at

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