Here's how a David Bowie classic ended up soundtracking the end of Stranger Things

6 January 2026, 11:58 | Updated: 6 January 2026, 12:35

Oh, we can beat Vecna, forever and ever

SPOILER WARNING: If you've not seen the finale of Stranger Things and plan on doing so any time soon, you might want to skip the rest of this article for now.

Stranger Things came to an end on New Year's Day after keeping viewers hooked for 42 episodes over five seasons in nine years.

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All (or certainly most) of the storylines were neatly (ish) wrapped up by the end of the final 128-minute feature length episode, which was soundtracked by some of the biggest songs you'll ever hear on a TV show.

As well as the classy score, the finale boasted 'Sh-Boom' by The Chords, 'Landslide' by Fleetwood Mac, 'The Trooper' by Iron Maiden, Cowboy Junkies' cover of 'Sweet Jane' and 'Here Come Your Man' by Pixies.

In the final moments there was a remarkable sequence featuring a literal needle drop moment back-to-back of Prince's 'When Doves Cry' and 'Purple Rain', not the sort of thing that usually gets permission from his estate.

And over the end credits there was David Bowie's "Heroes".

David Bowie - "Heroes" (Official Video) [HD]

Peter Gabriel's excellent cover of the same song had previously appeared way back in episode three of the first season, before enjoying a reprise in the last episode of season three, but there's nothing quite like Bowie's stunning original.

Here it made perfect sense.

For the past eight episodes our gang of misfits and miscreants had been challenged by a wall – not the Berlin Wall, but instead the intertwined organic mass that was a sort of gross event horizon of the wormhole that is the Upside Down between our world and the dastardly Abyss.

And when all was said and done, they were Heroes. They put themselves on the line, fought off Demogorgons and the Mindflayerer-Henry/Vecna hybrid to saved the universe, albeit at great cost.

Stranger Things 5 | Final Battle (official clip) | Netflix

So before we got the era-appropriate synthetic sounds of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein's excellent original theme music, there was a special credits sequence featuring Bowie's "Heroes", soundtracking an animation of our cast collected in a battered Stranger Things Players Manual: Fantasy Role Playing Game binder.

After the episode was released, the show's creators explained how the Stranger Things' Steve Harrington who came up with the idea.

“It was actually Joe Keery who suggested that we do the Bowie version,” Ross Duffer told Netflix's in-house news outlet Tudum.

"Once Joe said that, we immediately knew that was the right song to end the show on because it is, in some ways, an anthem for Stranger Things.

"To use the original Bowie version just felt fitting for the conclusion."

Stranger Things 5 | For the Nerds, Freaks, and Heroes | Netflix

During its five-season run, Stranger Things earned a solid reputation for its canny use of era-appropriate music.

Early on in the show you had 1980s classics like The Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go', Joy Division's 'Atmosphere' and The Bangles' cover of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Hazy Shade of Winter'.

And Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' played a pivotal role in the narrative of the show, with a beautiful Rob Simonsen remix featuring frequently.

On the back of its repeated appearance in Stranger Things, the song got to number one in the UK singles charts, becoming Bush's second number one, after 'Wuthering Heights' all the way back in 1978.