It’s one of the most instantly recognisable songs in the world.
Mr. Brightside was the first full track The Killers ever put together, and it was the only one to survive the first draft of their album.
In an interview with NME, The Killers lead singer Brandon Flowers shared the story of how the hit track was born.
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“It came from this cassette of ideas that Dave [Keuning] gave me, and one of them was the Mr. Brightside riff,” he explained. “I was able to slap a chorus and some lyrics onto it, and I knew I liked it.
“But it wasn’t until we first tried it out with a drummer that I knew it was special. We went to the guy’s house and showed him the song, and I got the goosebumps after that.”
But the lyrics weren’t as simple as Flowers made them sound.
While Mr. Brightside might be a song many people know the lyrics to, very few have actually listened to the story behind it.
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In the song, Flowers sings “Now I’m falling asleep and she’s calling a cab / While he’s having a smoke and she’s taking a drag / Now they’re going to bed and my stomach is sick / And it’s all in my head, but she’s touching his / Chest now, he takes off her / Dress now, let me go.”
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In 2009, he opened up about the story behind the song, sharing that the lyrics were inspired by one of his past relationships.
The singer was in Vegas when he woke up with a feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
“I have these instincts,” he told Q Magazine. Eventually, he decided to follow his gut and go see if his suspicions were correct.
”I went to the Crown and Anchor and my girlfriend was there with another guy,” Flowers, who is now married to his wife of 19 years, Tana, shared.
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When he first heard the chords of the song that Keuning had put together, Flowers said the lyrics just came to him, with the pair not wasting any time when it came to putting the song together.
“That’s also why there’s not a second verse,” he told Spin in 2015. “The second is the same as the first. I just didn’t have any other lines and it ended up sticking.”
This year, Mr. Brightside is celebrating it’s 20th birthday, and it’s still as recognised today as when it first became a hit, with both old and new fans streaming it every day.
Flowers told NME that the reason fans have stuck by the song for so long is because of it’s raw and real lyricism.
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“All the emotions in the song are real. When I was writing the lyrics, my wounds from it were still fresh,” he said. “I am Mr. Brightside!”
“But I think that’s the reason the song has persisted – because it’s real. People pick up on those things.
“And that goes all the way down to the production. We recorded it in a couple of hours, but it just sounds right, you know?”
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