In this sensitive ballad, Enrique Iglesias asks his lover a series of questions, assuring her that if she wants in, he'll be her "hero" - the guy who will take away her pain and be there through thick and thin. It went over very well with Enrique's female fans.
Iglesias wrote "Hero" with the British songwriters Paul Barry and Mark Taylor, who also collaborated on his hits "
Be With You" and "
Bailamos."
"I had an idea to write a song about all the crazy things you'd say to someone," Barry said in
The Billboard Book Of #1 Hits. "I had the line, 'Would you dance if I asked you to dance or would you laugh at me?' That was my original pitch to Enrique. From that, we started writing line after line, and 'Hero' came together quickly."
This song was released on August 14, 2001, just a month before the September 11 attacks on the US. The song doesn't describe the type first-responder heroes, but the theme of standing by a loved one resonated at this time, and the song became quite popular, reaching a chart peak of #3 November 17.
Iglesias attributes the success of this song to a combination of good lyrics, melody, and excellent production. He feels those three qualities need to work together to make a timeless hit.
Iglesias performed this at the 2001 Tribute To Heroes telethon, which aired September 21 and raised over $150 million for victims of the terrorist attacks. He said on VH1's Behind The Music: Enrique Iglesias: "That is the one moment in my career that I'll probably always remember, walking around that studio and seeing all these legends, there was no egos, it was about that moment and trying to help out and trying to make, trying to make it better with music. After I was done singing the song, looking around, everybody was crying. I almost felt like crying. It was unlike anything I've ever felt in my whole life."
The video, directed by Joseph Kahn, follows Iglesias as a criminal on the run with his girlfriend, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Actor Mickey Roarke plays one of his pursuers, who eventually kills him at the end of the video. The UK version gives a more hopeful outlook as Iglesias still moves his legs, implying he survives Roarke's attack. Other videos Kahn directed in 2001: U2's "
Elevation" and "
Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of," Papa Roach's "
Between Angels And Insects" and Garbage's "
Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)," to name a few.
"Hero" was the lead single to
Escape, Enrique Iglesias' second album of predominately English-language songs. His first three albums, released between 1995 and 1998, were in Spanish and sold millions, earning him a huge following in the Latin community. In 1999, Ricky Martin proved that Latin stars could be quite bankable with hits in English when "
Livin' La Vida Loca" took off. That same year, Iglesias broke into the mainstream with his album
Enrique. "Hero" showed that he had staying power and could score with ballads as well as upbeat dance songs.
Iglesias fought to get "Hero" released as the first single from the album. "Everybody thought first singles at the time had to be uptempo," he told People. "But I knew that it was one of those songs that when I wrote it it just felt special."
This song featured prominently in the 2010 comedy movie Hot Tub Time Machine. It also shows up in the 2008 movies Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Drillbit Taylor.
The Latin-American boy band CNCO covered this in 2020 for their album
Déjà Vu, marking their first fully-English release. The video, directed by Carlos Perez, is a tribute to the Backstreet Boys video for "
Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely."
This was a #1 Adult Contemporary hit in the US. It continues to get lots of play on "Lite Rock" radio stations.
"Hero" was nominated for some MTV Video Music Awards. It didn't win, but the 2002 ceremony marked Iglesias' first public appearance as a couple with Anna Kournikova, a star in the world of both tennis and fashion. They stayed together and had their first children, twins named Nicholas and Lucy, in 2017.
Chrysler used "Hero" in a commercial for the 2002 Jeep Liberty.
When Enrique Iglesias breaks down beside Jennifer Love Hewitt in the video, the tears are real. "The craziest thing about that video shoot that I don't know if people know is that Enrique and Aaliyah were close friends,"
Hewitt told Entertainment Tonight. "The night that we filmed that video was the night that she passed."
"Enrique had to film all of his crying stuff in the video... and he was really crying because she had passed," Hewitt continued. "We all did a big prayer for her at the end of the video and he kind of dedicated it to her. I just remember that being really intense."
