One Song - The Killers' "Mr. Brightside"

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Destiny is calling us to discuss the making of an unforgettable jam you’ve heard at countless weddings, karaoke bars, and sporting events. So open up your eager eyes (and ears)! On this episode of One Song, Diallo and LUXXURY break down The Killers’ 2003 hit, “Mr. Brightside.” They discuss where frontman Brandon Flowers drew inspiration to write this song (i.e.: Oasis, U2, and a bout of infidelity), why it’s become a catchy millennial anthem, how The Killers became one of the biggest rock bands of the 21st century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't miss the Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters. Merrill Street, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are back. In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. I did not hire you, and all I need to do is buy my time until you fail. On May 1st, icons. I'm going to make something of this job. Rain. Take the bridges I burn.

Night my way. Forever. I just love my job. Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. Luxury, a different kind of show for our podcast. Podcast today. Unusual episodes.

Yes, because we're going to be talking about the killers, the 1946 film noir movie, which was Bert Lancaster and his film debut. I'm going to stop you right there, Diallo, because that is actually not what we're going to talk about. That's not, we're not about the killers. You thought that our podcast today, the show one song where we talk about music, we were going to get into a podcast or. I thought it was a weird episode, but I don't get to make decisions around here anymore. I don't like saying no to you, but no. That's not what's happening.

Okay. I see. Yes, and I'm from an improv background. Improv. Do not insult me like that. All right, fine. We'll do it your way. Today's song is from one of the biggest rock bands of the 21st century. This song is their best-selling song in the U.S. And in the UK, it's a whole other story.

We're talking about the third best-selling and streaming song of all time. Number three, the bronze. We're talking about their competing against Adele and the Beatles, like all that stuff. It is the longest charting single on the official UK singles chart, top 100, where it has stood for, more than 416 weeks. That's about eight years, nearly eight years, if you keep the track. You are a math genius. I don't know how you figured that out so quick. It's a Guinness World Record. With their knack for crafting catchy melodies and anthemic choruses, this song about

infidelity and jealousy is a millennial anthem, sung in unison by countless crowds at karaoke bars weddings and sporting events around the world, and it has become one of the defining songs of the 2000s. That's right. So get out your guy liner and your advice. Don Dutch hat because Destiny is calling us to break down this song. Open up your eager ears and eyes because it's one song and that song is Mr. Brightside by The Killers. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers. Interpolation.

All right, Diallo. Okay, this is going to be a very different episode. I'm already kind of feeling my something rise in me because Mr. Brightside, The Killers, there's something about this band that evokes a lot of emotion for me. We're going to talk about it. Is it positive? Is it negative? We're going to get into all of that. But before we do, I wanted to ask you, how did you discover the killers and this song in particular?

You know, this is at a time when I was the director of music and talent at the standard hotels. I had a budget to buy pretty much as much music as I wanted. So I was in Amoeba Records every single day. That sounds like a fun job. It was a great, great job. And I had just come off of a two and a half year stint working in the A&R department at Hollywood records. I was there probably at the worst possible time for my taste because I was there when like everybody was trying to find the next new metal, rap metal. Right. That's the era. This is

2001. This is like 2001. It's like the beginning of 2002 through 2004. So like this is a time when everybody's just like they're trying to get down with the sickness. You know what I mean? It's not our favorite era for music. Let's face it. There was something very like young about that music and I was already in my 20s. I just wanted nothing to do with it. We've talked about on the show. Our favorite groups on that time are the Ye'A. Yes. Right. LCD sound system. The Rapture. There's the strokes. These are groups that like

I legitimately love, even if they don't get lumped in because they weren't a New York band. The White Stripes. The low-fi sound was in. That's what I liked. Yeah. But every A&R assistant was trying to hand their boss the demo of the next big new metal band.

Good God. And there was like a little bit of the emo sound out there, thanks to Averill. There was some of that, too, but that was even younger than the new metal. So that wasn't anything that I was really checking for. Also, I was really into dance at this point. Dance was not something that our label was trying to sign. I did get an artist by the name of Victor DuPlay signed to the label, and that was a lot of fun. But, you know, but I had to sell him in like a very old school way. Our head of A&R at the time was a guy named Rob Cavallo. He had produced Green Day. He had produced Green Day. He had produced their biggest album, Duky.

And the way that I got Victor to Play sign was I was like, this is like Earth Win and Fire, but like the new version. And that was how we were able to get him signed. That worked at the time. But it really was a time when everybody in terms of bands was looking for a particular sound and into this

mehye, if you will, were bands like the rapture. We're bands like Chick, Chick, Chick. These bands that had sort of a danceable rock music. And I think that just as I was getting ready to leave the label in about 2004, that was when the killers sort of popped up on my radar because it was like the killers and it was hot hot heat with their single bandages.

That's a great song. There was the beginning of a shift in the A&R department towards bands that were a little bit like the poppy version of The Rapture, the poppy version of Chick-Chic Chick. Sure, they had like kind of a dirty underground like kind of credibility. Like they had like a New York look or vibe Yeah, but the song writing was pop music With choruses and hooks and radio friendly And by the way, when I first heard the killers

Which we both love. We love that stuff. I actually thought the killers were a New York band Because they sort of looked like a New York band They had a little bit of this popier version Of the post-punk stuff that was coming out Mixed with, and I didn't realize this at the time It's very obvious looking back now.

They also had a little bit of the emo styling coming in as well. Yeah, a little bit of that proto, that early Myspace hot topic kind of vibe. The guyliner like you mentioned, right? A lot of it is in the visuals that this comes across. The Von Dutch hats were in such effect at that time. In fact, one of the... Everything Ed Hardy and Christian Odege.

I feel like affliction was coming up big. One of the things I loved about the TV show Entourage was that the opening credits never changed. And in the opening credits, they actually passed the whiskey at go-go, and there's a poster for hot fuss there. So by the time this show's been on the air for like seven seasons or whatever, was it was just like, man, this show's been on for a really long time. You know, like, because it was like eight or nine years after Hot Futs had already

come out and blown up. And another thing, I mean, like, there are so many reasons we choose any song to do on this podcast. One big reason we're doing this song on the podcast is because as someone who's still DJs sometimes, I still go to clubs. I will do karaoke sometimes. There are a few songs that are bigger than this song in the club right now at karaoke night.

Like, it always takes people who are younger than me. to another level. Like they just lose it every time. It's a single one, right? That's another part of it too. It's like a participation. It's huge. It's huge.

And I remember after one night in particular where I'd gone to this night where ostensibly the music was, you know, the rapture and LCD and a bunch of other music like that. I remember this song went off so big. I texted you and I was like, you know what? I think we have to do an episode about this song. How did you discover the killers? Well, this is where the show takes a turn.

It goes into the dark place. that I just experienced preparing for this episode. First and foremost confession, this is not a band that I have ever really paid a lot of attention to because it really, at the time they were happening, I was starting my music career. So as I am an early band person, I'm writing my first ever songs,

I'm putting together flyers and trying to get gigs and going on Craigslist to find bandmates, that's my life for a long time, like a lot of years. It's like getting a CD-ROM machine or whatever, a drive, you know, a CD, whatever they were called back in the day, enhanced CDs. You were, as a band person, constantly working hard to just promote yourself and write the music and begging for a $25 gig to open for another band.

Were you on Myspace at that time? Myspace was actually really helpful at this. Yes, of course. That's why I asked. I booked an entire tour of England on MySpace using a fake profile. I won't reveal my fake name because I still sometimes use it to this day because I never had a manager. I never had a booking agent. So it was all DIY and not because I was too cool to have any help.

I was just like no one was helping me. I was in this era part of the majority of artists and musicians who are just trying. And there's so much effort and it's exhausting. And at the time you're doing it like look, you're imbued with a lot of passion and you're excited and you're optimistic. And you have to have this. the word that kept coming to my head as I was preparing for this episode was creative delusion. I had so much creative delusion. And as I was reading up and going back in time to this era and reading on Brandon Flowers

and how the band started, I really connected with him also being, he's a little younger, but we were starting at the same time. He also had vast amounts of creative delusion. And you need it to survive. It is the fuel that takes the impossible dream of like having, your first ever song, having your fifth song so you can have your first gig. This entire process of going from zero to band is kind of equally hard for everyone. Yeah.

But these guys are the luckiest bastard on Earth. The story we're about to tell is every band's dream and me watching it from afar, I think what prevented me from being a fan of the band. And the song is just plain jealousy, which is what the song is about. So it's kind of, it's all coming full circle. The industry was touching Brandon's chest. It was touching not my check. Oh God, and that line, listen, we're going to get into the niggardia of this song.

But even things as micro as that line, me as a budding songwriter, like in my life, like every day, I'd be like, okay, today's lyrics day and I'd be making choices about what lyrics to go. When I heard that lyric, I was like, that's a terrible lyric. What? And I hate it to this day, but clearly I'm in the minority and super wrong because people love the song. They love the lyric. I have to say that this has been a wonderful reckoning to have to like face. my discomfort with this song and this band because I'm like, okay, a lot of years under the bridge, a lot of winder under the bridge. It's still challenging for me, but of course, it is a great song.

The band is great. Everything about them. They deserve their success. And it's helpful and healthy for me to have this therapy of this podcast to kind of work through it. But I think that's fair because, you know, I went into comedy around the middle of the 2000s. And it worked out for me. But trust, there was a point in time when I was on MySpace, but I also had a MySpace band account for a group that I wanted to form a DJ collective called The Friends Electric based on the Gary Newman song. Du Boeh-by Army. Even when I was at the record label, even if it wasn't me, there was a time when I just wanted

to be a manager of the kind of band that I was not hearing. So I was like, the strokes are so New York, what is the ultimate California band? And I remember thinking, okay, the name of the band will be the Malabites. And I was like, I'm going to put an ad in Craigslist and say, hey, do you want to to do strokesy type music, but with a West Coast bent, then hit me up. I am an A&R assistant in Hollywood Records, and I want to form a group. The name of the group that I wanted to have formed was going to be called the Malibates. And I was like, and they're just going to be, they're going to be as much from Malibu as the group Incubis, but they're not going to make

incubus music. They're going to be like the strokes of the West Coast. Nobody replied to that ad, by the way. So for me, the mixer that I thought was going to be really unique and countering you mentioned that at the time the trend there was a lot of like kind of new metal and whatever all of these sort of bands for me in San Francisco there was there was less of that by the way San Francisco outsider again like Brandon Flowers not in New York

in Las Vegas what I what the band scene there was for the most part was either indie rock in quotes whatever that means like what that meant in the era but it was also kind of like esoteric like especially in San Francisco there was a real kind of like underground aesthetic which was

anti choruses like a very dissonant or very like there's this this label. If you write a chorus, you sold out, man. Kid 606 was really big, which was this electronic, like, glitchy beats, like, anti-what-was-big, in other words. Sort of like going against the rain. Wonderful. Like, we love punk. We love going against the rain.

But that's not what I was doing. I was trying to write, this was my vision, to land the plane. My vision, and I called it luxury, I was going to be like, look, there's all this gritty rock and roll. But I want to do something that's a little bit fantastic, that's a little bit visually stimulating, that takes. into account the glam rock and the David Bowie of it all. And like, let's not forget the cure in Depeche mode. All of this stuff was really uncool. Yeah.

It was so uncool at that time to be bringing this in, except in Las Vegas for this man and this song who did the same thing. His vision was very similar to mine. And it worked because the songwriting was better, I suppose. I mean, like, I'm not going to like hate on the guy. Listen, listen. But that's part of what's happening for me with the song. I'm going to, I'm not saying this because you're my podcast partner or my friend.

Yeah. there's so much else that goes into it other than just the songwriting and the music making. There's so much luck that is involved. There is so much positional luck. And we've talked about that. You know, like if you'd been in a different city, if you'd been in Vegas, this could have gone very differently. But we wouldn't have you on this podcast, so I don't want that. I don't have any regrets.

I appreciate what you're going with that. But I guess all I'd say is that it is funny because, you know, like, everything is so temporary. Absolutely. And since, look, we're already in this headspace of like this is an unusual show and that I'm sort of of facing this moment in a, you know, we're going to talk about the song. Don't worry. We'll get the Mr. Brightside. You come for the killers.

You get the luxury origin story and I love it. And it's funny that Mr. Brightside is the moment on this podcast on one song with Dialla Riddle and luxury where for me I'm like, man, this is, there's a lot of information and content and feelings I have about this song that's outside of the song itself. And that straight, like the irony of it being a song about jealousy that I have this jealousy towards is really hitting me in a wonderful way. But the creative delusion. that's the thing I kept circling back to.

It's like, that is the fuel. And if you're out there and you're a musician and you're an artist, the creative delusion is the fuel, you stay with it. Be delusional. Anytime you can tap into that energy source. It's an energy source for creativity and for moving the world. And luck is not something you can control. And you're absolutely right to point out that that's the part of it

that you just have to have some faith in. And maybe it does work out for you with the vision you have and maybe some different vision pans out. I agree. Luxury, would you consider the killers an alt-rock band? I mean, like, I have my own theories, but would you place them in the same category as Kings of Leon, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Hot Heat? Like, how would you categorize them? Look, I promise not to return to the same simmering, bubbling cauldron of envy.

Why them? I promise that this whole episode won't be that. But I will say this, one of the things that triggered me in your question is the memory of when they came out, how many people would say, oh, they're like Duran Duran. they're like New Order. And I'm like, no, they're not. What I don't see the connection. What I'm doing is more like that. And what they're doing is more like,

it's to me I was hearing you two and I was hearing like, you know, I hear you too. And swinging for the fences. Can I tell you why I think I hear you too in this band? I'm so glad you bring this up. Because when I hear you two is such an interesting band to me. Because when they emerge, they are clearly in the new wave canon. But then somewhere they were able to figure out how to go out of New Wave

into like anthem rock. And I feel like the killers are that for the scene that we love. We love the Meet Me in the Bathroom scene. I love the fact that like nowadays, thanks to TikTok, our kids know maps by the AAS. That's not a song that they would probably know otherwise. But with that said, there were very few songs out of that scene that like are like massive, massive hits, you know?

And to that point, the killers are the band out of that scene, much like you two was the band out of the, a new way. See, the killers of the band out of that scene that have these huge anthem-style choruses. Yes. That's the key. We love the strokes. I love the strokes. We talked about it on the maps episode. They didn't have choruses that were big swinging pop music top 40. On the maps episode in particular, I'm alluding to the story of how Max Martin and Dr. Luke were like, we love the strokes, but they don't have choruses and they wrote since you've been gone for Kelly Clarkson. That's true. The strokes don't have choruses, but what Brandon Flowers did from literally moment one,

Day 1 is he knew how to write big anthemic choruses. And that's what the radio wants, and that's what Planet Earth wants, and that's what makes songs tend to endure. And to your point about you, you two, you two did have big choruses on day one. They were like a scrappy post-punk band, guitar-based drums, but Sunday, that's an early-ass song, right? New Year Day. That's right.

Boy is the debut album. Oh, my God. Like, I'm just realizing I will follow his song 1 on album 1. And that's got such a great chorus. It's probably my favorite U-2 song. Anyway, right out of the gate, you two are anthemic. Right out of the gate, the killers are anthemic. That to me is, I mean, we love Friends Ferdinand, we love the strokes.

France Ferdinand actually. We're going to talk about Friends because I think that like, look. There are two groups that I feel like hit my radar about the same time. I was firmly in the Franz Ferdinand camp. I loved all the Franz Ferdinand remixes. There were some amazing Franz Ferdinand remixes. To me, the killers are not alt rock. I think that they, you know, having listened to more of their music now,

I really do think that they were, and I'm creating a new term here, I think they were kind of like pop post-punk, if that makes sense. Triple P, whatever we want to call that. They were pop post-punk because now when I go back and listen to them, I'm like, oh, the killers achieved the success that I think hot, hot heat was going for. I remember hearing hot, hot heat and being like, this is going to be the New York band that, is going to take that New York sound

and make it palatable for the K rock of the 2000s, because it's important to remember K rock in the 2000s is not really messing with the New York sound as much as I would have liked. You know what I mean? Like they were still very much every other song was still sublime. They were full in on new metal. You know, like it was hard to get them to listen to

and play these new songs. So Hot Hot Hot Heat was regulated to KCRW in the city. But, you know... I think these guys did a Max Martin and Dr. Luke. They're like, we love the strokes. The strokes plus you two. That's sort of the formula, isn't it? The killers are the strokes meets you two. Yeah. I think that's where I'm going to stay. I like that. I like that. All right, let's talk about the killer's origin story. They are formed in 2001 in Vegas. Again, 2001. Could have been us. Las Vegas, not a city particularly known for creating chart topping artists, usually more for hosting them in residencies, not the place they call home. But fun fact, it must be said, imagine dragons, panic at the disco, Neo. These are all acts that came out of Vegas.

Vegas. Neil's got some great stories about growing up in Vegas. One of my favorite Las Vegas groups is The Crystal Method, electronic group out of the late 90s. And a high roller, I still think, holds up immensely. It's just a great song. Vegas, a great album. But back to The Killers,

can you tell us a little bit more about how this group comes together? So our good friend, Mr. Brandon Flowers, is growing up in a Las Vegas suburb called Henderson, the youngest of six kids. And it's his older brother who passes along cassettes with the bands that he comes to love and become influenced by the cure, the new order stuff, the Smiths, all this great British music of the 80s. When he's eight, he moves to Utah.

They are Mormons in this family. And at 16, he's back to Vegas to live with an aunt. And he starts playing in a band called Blush Response while he's working as a bellhop. So he's playing keyboards in this band until the band moves to L.A. and basically abandons him. So he's on his own and he answers an ad, which is placed in the newspaper. or rather one of those sort of weekly trades. Yeah, yeah.

Like the Vegas Weekly or something. Like LA Weekly. Creative Loafing in Atlanta. Hey. And it's an ad placed by guitarist David Keuning, who's looking for bandmates. Clearly, he already had some idea that he wanted to be a rock star. I always like to. Yeah.

What's that? He's got the fire. The creative fire. Yeah, I always like to hear like, what was the thing that sparked a person and think, oh, that's what I have to do. And for everybody's something a little bit different. For Brandon, it's been reported that he went to go see Oasis on the Twitter. tour of Brotherly Love, and that was when he decided he had to be a rock star. I know how they would have started their set back then.

I'm so sorry, like, I have to play this song. I know what you're going to play. One of the greatest beats of all time as interpolated. We've talked about that before. So that's Jimmy Hendrix, Little Miss Lover. And, yeah, that Oasis show, he famously talks about how he went to the show and, quote, it was the first time I felt this communal experience, a strange sort of spirituality. And I wanted to write an answer to this song.

So, solid can wait. I mean... Ash is walking on by. His method of songwriting is not that dissimilar from Oasis's method of songwriting, where he's the thieving magpie with, you know, legal... Without the legal ramifications in Brandon's case, he's getting away with it. Because what he's doing is, you know, I will always defend building blocks or building blocks. So he's finding.

little ideas from other songs and he's rearranging them and using new words and re-like the chords are different but for the record both Oasis and the killers I'm on board with this being how music gets made I'm not like calling them out for anything that's cool and by the way don't look back in anger as one of my favorite songs it's it was used

in the in-betweeners famously the video features a good friend of mine Liz Carey it's just who ended up marrying Alan White from Oasis but anyway we get back to Brennan this Oasis show is very famously important to him because he goes to it with a girl

who then breaks up with him. And perfect timing for him to write an answer to don't look back in anger. Another quote, The wound was so raw, it was cathartic for me to make betrayal sound so good was just a lucky thing I stumbled upon

because Dave Kooning, when they first meet up, gives him a cassette with five guitar ideas on it, and the very first one is this. Now, that's actually from the final version, the final recording, early demo apparently had that riff idea, which he had come up with, among a few others.

And it was the first thing on the cassette tape when Brandon was apparently driving around the desert listening to this demo thinking, oh, should I join this band? And he starts thinking of lyrics and melodies. And he's got this oasis experience and the girlfriend breaking up with him and this guitar. And that's how it all comes together into this moment where he finds the song, Mr. Brightside. That's the very first song they write, these lucky bastards. But we often talk on this pod about the fact that sometimes it's the thoughts that you don't overthink. It's the ones that you just come to, that flow naturally. And it's almost like they were given by some divine force. It does seem like this was coming from a divine place.

And he's a divine man and he has divine biblical lyrics in this song. And look, I don't doubt that he was tapping into something pretty special because he's found a universal chord with this song, with the topic. And then the music that came together with his collaboration with guitarist Dave Cooning. It's all amazing that it happens with the first thing they do. That's just the miracle of his band. It's the first thing they do. And they're playing around town.

And you know what? I used to be at a record label. So I've been at these performances, these showcases. There's always something very depressing. Not that I need to tell you. There's something very depressing about going to that show where the band has like 50 people there and they're handing out a demo or they've got a little merch stand. Right.

You know, but everybody starts out there. I just saw that Megan the Stallion documentary that is so powerful. I think it's called In Her Words. And as late as 2017 or 2018, Amyne, Megan's performing in, like, college courtyards where people are, like, literally snacking on fries just watching her rap to a instrumental played by the DJ who probably didn't want to stop the party

to have her get out there and perform. So the band gets its name, as many people know, from the 1946 film noir movie starring Bert Lancaster. Not accurate. Inaccurate information, that's misinformation. It might even be disinformation. I think you're consciously trying to screw with people because the actual reason is from the video for this song by New Order from 2001. Yeah, I love this one of my favorite.

New Order 2001 Crystal. Yes, one of my favorite, by the way, one of my favorite New Order songs. And when I saw the video, I remember being confused because I was like, wait, are they that young? Like, they must have been, they must have, no, I'm serious. You were fooled by the 18 year old? Yes, because again, as a kid who didn't really, I loved the music, I was. never that person to go to those shows. No other kids in my schools were listening to this kind of music.

So I didn't necessarily know what New Order looked like. And I remember thinking, wow, they look really young. But it turned out it was a fictional group. Called the killers. Called the killers. On the little drumhead. It says the killers, they look very like the strokes. Right?

They really do. They're very New York, they're very New York, 2001. In fact, he said something. I feel like Bernard Summer said something like, we wanted the band in the video to look like what we felt like MTV wanted the band that sings this song to look like. No, it's great. And it succeeded all the way down to you thinking it was the best. Having a moment of self-doubt. Like, like, oh wow, they're a lot younger. Well, sometimes we grow from self-doubt. They must have been teenagers when they release

Blue Monday. This is the self-doubt episode of one song. It just means that I'm gullible. Every step of the way, as we tell the story, I'm remembering all the self-doubt that I had, trying to make it as a musician. So to be fair, there is a moment where they've written this song and they haven't made it yet. It's a pretty brief moment in retrospect. song was debuted apparently at this place, Cafe Espresso Roma in early 2002, their first ever show. And a little bit earlier, they had put together their first demo. Now, what I found, I found a demo of Mr. Brightside. I'm not sure if this is their first ever demo, which apparently had a drum machine or maybe the second one re-recorded, because I hear live drums, which I believe

are by Matt Norcross. But here it is, a demo around the same period of Mr. Brightside. Now, D'all, as we were listening, you mentioned how strokesy it is. That is. is a strokesy demo. Just take it! Oh, leave it! I'll take it! I'll leave it! Oh, just take it!

It sounds so strokesy, but it also sounds immediately good because the songwriting is already there. They have this big, big chorus, which is undeniable.

And Brandon says, I still remember the hairs on my arm standing up. When I heard our demo for the first time, they know it's a good song and they're not wrong.

So they play the song. The band starts to come together. They get Ronnie Vanucci, Jr., who's a big Vegas drummer to join the band. They get Mark Stormer, who's a guitarist in another band. Interestingly, by the way,

they approached him to be the second guitarist because the vision quote was to be more like the strokes with a keyboard. I heard that. And they're telling. By the way, the thing I want to say about Ronnie,

to me, he is like their Ringo. Because the Beatles famously had a change of personnel in the beginning. And Ringo had played with other bands. So he sort of came in with experience. It's kind of a ringer in a way. Yes.

And I feel like Ronnie is sort of the same thing. He's like a guy, look, I play with other bands. I think that's right. and he's got the discipline. He's got the kind of blue collar, like, you know, working musician. Like, this is how you do it, man. You need a visionary.

And he's an incredible drummer. He's a great drummer. He's technically great at what he does. Yeah. So you have Brandon and Dave who are like the visionaries of the killers. Yeah. And then you bring in a guy who's just like, you know, he's a technician. He's like, okay, let's do this.

Yeah. And he adds power and he puts underneath that sound, you know, the original, what we just heard, the drums are fine. They're not exciting. He adds to the drums of this song something really special. we'll be hearing when we get to the stems. You always need a wringo. You always need a Ronnie. That's my point.

One more stroke story. Listen, they're at the Virgin Mega Store. The day the Stroke's debut album is This It Comes out. Quote from Brandon Flowers, when we put it in the car, that record sounded so perfect. I got so depressed after that. We threw everything away. Wow.

The only song they kept was Mr. Brightside. Wow. So they redid their entire repertoire after hearing the strokes. So what is it about the strokes? As you mentioned, the vocal distortion. There's this 80s eighth-node thing. a lot of da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da like the baseline. These aren't funky bass lines.

It's dun-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I think the kind of... It's Joy Division. It's post-punk. It's the cars we're doing it. It's New Wave. It's a lot of bands do that. The Pixies.

And they're sort of bringing it back, I think, in a new context with the rock, you know, strokes version of it also tends to have counterpoint, where you have like an arpeggiated guitar part, and it is like an ostinado, meaning it stays the same. But underneath it the person, baseline changes. That's a very strokesy thing. That's happening in this song. I'll point it out again in the stems when we get there. But then the chorus is not the strokes. The chorus, that's where they

break from the strokes and they go into U2ville. Big time. That's a very profitable town. It's a profitable place to live. Oasis town is right next door to U2 town. I want to live in that neighborhood. Let's put it that way. So Braden Merrick is a gentleman who, as I was researching this episode, look, all of these names are people that were in my world. He managed a band that I tried out for bass to play in a band called Petrol. Great band, one of my favorite bands in San Francisco at the time. I played one gig with them and then they never called me back. They're still friendly. They're all good. Great band that Brandon Merrick was also managing, but he found this band and him and a team with former Green Day manager Jeff Salzman and Mark Needham. The three of them had a production company.

they sign this band and they shop it around all the record labels in America and nobody wants them. But one record label in the UK does say yes to them and that label is Lizard King. Lizard King. I'm working at Hollywood Records, which is like a traditional American label, Lizard King was something else.

Can you tell us what Lizard King was about? I have to go back to the cauldron of Envy. Just to dip my pinky in a second. As I'm researching this episode, I sent demos to Lizard King and it's the kind of thing that once you do it and once that you get on the email follow-up, that means that kind of for like decades,

that poor person, Martin Heath from Lizard King, is probably still getting my damn promotional emails. Like, listen to the latest one song, check out my new remix. I mean, all of the names that figure in the killer's story, also figure in the luxury story, as people that I tried to communicate with who ignored me. But they did not ignore Braden Merrick's demo.

None of the major label signed them, but Lizard King has the foresight to sign the killers, which they do. And a quote for Martin Heath, everyone in America had turned them down. They'd been out for a year looking for a deal. No one was interested. But it was clear to me that this was a major star. Brandon had huge charisma.

He completely believed in what he was doing. He just stood out and carried the music. He saw the delusion, right? That's like Brandon had it, but he also had it. He had the it. So they released Mr. Brightside in 2003. The first version was a limited run of 500 CD singles. But it was enough to get to Zane Low.

Shout out to Zane Lowe. Zane Lowe plays this song. It gets some interest. And then suddenly, they have a following in the UK. They have a following in the UK. Frankly, they're bordering on an overnight success in the UK. They record hot fuss in November 2003. Their second single comes up. It creeps into the top 40. That's Somebody Told Me. Great song, by the way. That's the first killer song I heard was Somebody Told Me. Can we hear a little bit of it? My one beef about somebody told me. We're hearing the same thing. We're hearing the same exact thing. It reminds me a blurred girls and boys. It is a blur song, but not a blur song. We're the same. This is our friendship right here in a nutshell. I've read a lot of interviews with Brandon Flowers preparing for this episode. And there's one where it's so interesting. It's very

vulnerable. He eludes to there being something about his songwriting process that he doesn't want to reveal. And I think, who knows what that might mean. But one thing that's very clear about his songwriting process is he likes to do what I call. And I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show before, it feels important to me. Writing sideways. This is a tried and true songwriting method. That expression, for me, comes from the Brill Building writers of the 60s, the like Lieber and Stoller. And what is writing sideways mean? It means you start with a hit record and you find an element or two. Writing sideways can be taking a concept and writing a new song from the concept. And then later on, you hear it back and you're like, oh, these songs are related,

but they're vaguely related. It's not that there's a melody lifted or the same chorus or whatever it is. It's just the confusion of being on holiday and not knowing who you're supposed to ask out. Exactly. Writing sideways, to be clear, is what, if not most songwriters in some way are doing when they write music, there's something that they're starting from and inspiration starting point. So I think Brandon Flowers' inspirations can sometimes be a little more clear than other songwriters. I think that's what we're picking up. I think that's what we're saying. So yeah, we finally arrive at the recording of Hot Fuss, one of the big, big albums of the 2000s,

and even the band has no idea the level of success, this album, and this song will achieve. That's true, because they are a fucking overnight success for the railroad. This is the story of rags to riches glory in Las Vegas in the Las Vegas desert. Sorry, I should say, in the Glastonbury,

you know, John Peel tent or whatever. Because what happens is somebody told me comes out. They're signed to Island Records in America. Hot Fuss is then released in June 2004, and it goes number one in the UK by January, just seven months after its release. The song, by the way, Mr. Brightside is re-released

with a slightly cleaner radio mix, and that one hits the charts as well. It goes top ten in both the UK and the U.S. I mentioned, as it wasn't a joke. Like, literally, they played at Glastonbury in 2004, the John Peel tent, and quote, it went off, said Brandon Flowers.

It looked like footage of the Sex Pistols. They get three Grammy Award nominations. They get nominated for Best Rock album. They get MTV VMA, Best New Artist. They get the NME Award, Best International Band. Brandon is the sexiest and best-dressed man-alized. Listen, this is within one year of their first album. Most artists have to wait 10 years to win that MTV Best New Artist Award.

They have to, like, strive their whole career for the Best New Artist Award. Look, they're the world best-selling new group at the 2005 World Music Awards. Not an award ceremony I'd been aware of. But, like, this is what happens to this band, overnight success. and well-deserved, I can now say after 20 years of having to like contemplate my feelings about it, well-deserved. It's a fine song by a fine band. We're not done talking about that song. In fact, we've got so much more to discuss.

I've got to go back to the cauldron. About the killers. Oh, boy. After the break, we'll dive into how Mr. Brightside was made and answer the questions, is this based on a real-life story? What does swimming through sick lullabies mean? And what makes the song so damn catchy? We'll be right back. Welcome back to one song.

Luxury, walk us through this massive, massive hit. Tell us, how did Mr. Brightside get made? All right, well, we got to start with the songwriting splits. It's kind of an interesting story when you investigate the story of just the credits. Like, who wrote this song? If you buy the record Hot Fuss, or at least the earliest copies, they may have changed this, it'll just say on it, Flowers and Kunik. In other words, that Dave and Brandon wrote this song.

However, if you look into the deeper registry of songwriting, which is the PRS, That's, by the way, a little quick primer on like songwriting credits for those that want to play at home looking stuff up like this. You know, Spotify and Wikipedia, it's a starting point, an understandable one. And it's accurate a lot of the time, but not all the time. So that's a good starting point. I would go a little further though. There's a website called SongView, which is the BMI and ASCAP records. That's a little more accurate.

But the most accurate place is going to be PRS, which is not accessible publicly. So I have a friend who's in the industry who does the lookups for me. Shout out to my buddy, Claire. Shout out to Claire. And it's important because not only does it tell you all the names, it tells you the percentages. So what I learned in investigating this, interestingly, is that all four the band members are now credited.

In other words, there was a change that happened at a certain point along the way. And it's not equal. It's Brandon Flowers gets 34%. Kooning, Vanucci Jr., and Mark Stormer bass player all get 22% each. What I found interesting about that, AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos, different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control.

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50-50. It almost seemed like Dave gave him the opening guitar stuff. So that's what's interesting to me, is I would have assumed that maybe this is a 50-50 split because when two people write a song and one's the music and the others, the lyrics and melody, presumably. I think that they interacted, you know, when they were first writing Mr. Brightside. Maybe I think that Brandon might have come up with the chorus in the telling that they both do. Sometimes Brandon says he wrote the chorus and sometimes Dave says they've voted. Whatever it is, whatever it came down, branding gets a little more.

And I just recently was reading a study, a study done, an academic study of bands. Somebody went and went through bands that stay together versus bands that split up. And they made the connection that how they split the songwriting share is frequently a big part of the duration, the longevity of a band. Doesn't take a math. You too famously splits, according to legend, splits equally among the four band members. So something to be said about, doing that if you want to keep the band together. And that's what the pillars apparently are. I mean, you and I split all our money, 80, 20. What the fuck, man? That's right. I don't think you're last episode of one song. Math that I'm looking at. Well, let's talk about how the song gets made.

We have Jeff Saltzman's the producer. Mark Needham is the mixer. According to Mark, there were two or three takes that he edited in about 30 minutes. And he made a couple of decisions, one of which I will play for you right now. The beginning of the song starts with distorted drums that are panned hard. Again, just so that there is something contrasting in the intro before the song bursts into technicolor, basically. It's like black and white.

So that's Ronnie Vanucci Jr. on drums, starting with these 16th note high hats. And then it burst into technicolor around this part. And he's just playing a strict 16th note beat. It's pretty fast. That's 140. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, it was interesting to me is that

especially that part before it burst in the technical as you put it. It sounds almost like it could be drum machine. It sounds like technically just perfect. Yeah. No, the sounds are really interesting when you isolate the drums like that because it's very, it almost sounds like you're putting up a single SM58 microphone.

It's very dirty kind of garage recording sounding. That's maybe the last vestige of the band that thought they were going to be sort of stroxious. I think there's a stroxiousness. There's a very stroxiousness. Maybe they should have worked with Nicole Scherner. No. On some strokishness.

We can never do a show about her because I can't say her name. Yeah, we'll be hearing this distortion that on the drums later on because it's also in the vocals to give it that strokish that we were just to go into it. So that's Vinucci in the first part of the song. He then goes into another beat. The eighth note section sounds like this. So dirty. Like listening back just isolated. Like this is not a Fleetwood Mac song where the snare drum is pristine or it's not Steely Dan.

Like, you know, it's like we're the opposite of Stia in many ways. It's not this pristine sonic isolation and perfection. No, because they're coming out of the lo-fi period. They're coming out of a low-five. This is giving them indie cred. And then in the pre-chorus, he adds the tombs that sound like this. Let me add some bass in. Here's Mark Stormer on bass guitar so you can hear where we are in the song.

It's really building up to the chorus that everybody has to sing along. And the melody is so basic. I'm just... Cheeated on me! I'm showing my hand a little bit. But that chorus, the basic is why it's big. I'm not mad. I'm not mad.

Who's mad? Who's mad? I'm a little mad. He's not mad. It's only a kiss. I'm just a kiss. I'm doing this episode from my bubbling cauldron. But I'm appreciating it. I'm appreciating it.

It was only a kiss. It was only a kiss. These drums remind us that we already have the New York scene. We already have rock bands that, you know, are getting people to dance, not to mosh. Yeah. Everybody's moshing to LCD in the Rapture. These are bands, these are rock bands that are getting people to dance. And out of that come the killers.

But what's interesting to me is that around 2004, when this song really starts to blow up, me as a former, you know, guy who's loving that rock scene, I'm getting more into dance. And the killers almost seem to be along with Franz Ferdinand and eventually the bravery and acts like that. Yeah. They're taking more to rock. So out of one scene, one underground scene, you have this divergence where one group is going to go more often to the daft punk. So by 2006, we're full on dancing. You know what I mean?

And part of it is functional. By 2006, the killers are coming out with day and age, which is even more of what they're doing here. And it's almost like the scene has split in two. That's really interesting. And just to build on what you're saying, part of it is functional because on the dance floor, there are BPMs that are tend to be. you have a range that if you're a DJ, genre is kind of constricting you in some ways. You can play a 140 BPAM song, but you're going to have to do something kind of special to like transition from the 120 to 124 that you didn't playing all night into that.

It's a choice that a band has to make. We talked about this on the Depeche Mode episode too a little bit. The remixes can kind of take the place of you still fitting into the DJ in the electronic world. But if you're aiming for radio, that kind of is going to win every time. and at that point you're making decisions about how the BPMs and the sounds and the choruses that are more about radio ears than dance floor needs. Dance floor needs. Radio ears and dance floor needs.

I think you're right because I think that if I think about like Pogo by digitalism, if I think about even Franz Ferdinand had a remix of Take Me Out that was more, it was more for the indie rock kids to Pogo dance too than to like sort of 120 sort of like, disco style dance too. And let's not forget the tempo change and take me out. It's like there are some things that are harder to accomplish. You're making the DJ's job harder. So as a DJ, I'm like, I'm just not playing the song in my DJ's head. As a DJ, the tempo change is always like a tough thing to deal with. It's a real big ask. Yes, it's a big ask. Can we go to the base? Let's talk about the base for a second. You know, you played the bass in that Tom section so that we would know

where we were. But it reminds me that, gosh, dang it. Like the freaking post- punk bass is just it's always good. You're absolutely right. We talked about post punk. Part of what makes it postpunk. Part of what makes that bass. The connection between all of these bands is this eighth note consistent bass line. And let's listen to it.

This is in the intro. And with the drums, it sounds like this. Now, listen to how much distortion is on that bass too. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. If you could, bear with me. Play the bass by itself again. You got it. She's lost control.

Yeah. It's so Joy Division, right? It's so Joy Division. I can hear Hooky, your buddy Hooky. But now this part is where I argue. Loestrung. Then he moves, you're right. When he makes that move, when he makes that move,

that's when the killers go from Joy Division to the OC, in my opinion. To the OC, what does that mean? There's something, the show, the OC, which was popular at that time. This feels like television? Yes, it feels like we've made the lead from 1980 and Ian Curtis. to 2004 and Adam Brody. That's interesting. Okay.

I'm serious. Because it's almost like they open it up. It goes from like the Sturm and drum of one thing to the sunny coastline of California. And I don't know what it is in that change. And you probably know better than me. But there's something of that chord change. It just it lightens the mood for what comes next. That's interesting.

Yeah. I'm not sure that I have an answer. but like let's bask in the ambiguity. Let's bask in this California sun. So we go into that quarter note section and then when we get to the pre-chorus, we go back to eighth notes and it's a big build-up. And everyone knows tension, tension, tension, tension, tension, tension, tension, tension,

tension, tension, release. I mean, it makes sense why it works, but man, it's... It's relentless, it's driving. It's pummeling. It is, but you know, like, Brandon's singing actually is making it sound like the bass is changing more than it is. It's like just hearing the bass isolated like that, I'm hearing now that the base doesn't change as much as it was in my head listening to it.

You know, we're going to get to the vocals in a minute, and I'll point this out more directly as we're listening to each chunk. But most of the change in this song is taking place in the chords from one section to the next. And then in the chorus we have a kind of classic. I think we've talked about the Axis of Awesome before and if we haven't. But the Axis of Awesome, for those of you who don't know, are the four chords that you find in a huge number of pop. songs, especially in the last 20, 25.

Actually, going back to the 80s, you know, Journey, Don't Stop Believe in. It's 1,6, 4, 5, and sometimes the order is reversed or changed. The chords in Mr. Brightside are in the order that they're in, are 1, 4, 6, 5. Brandon Flowers talks about some of his influences very openly, and one of them, for this

song, he wanted, he basically says, we were trying to be you too, as we alluded to, and the song, Wither Without You in particular, has the same chords, just they're rearranged. And with or without you, which I'll play a little snippet from now, it's 1, 5, 6, 4. And what that means, these numbers, is that these songs are in different keys, but the relationship of the one chord to the next are in this particular order, which means you could play them in any key, and it would feel the same.

It's like when you pick happy birthday out of thin air, you know, it doesn't matter what key you're singing it in. You're all going to sing it together because you know where to go. So here's with or without you, and you'll notice the chord change. are similar but different. Oh, I hear it. Yeah. That's one.

Coming out in my cage and I've been doing just fine. Gotta, gotta be down because I... It's just... They're actually... They're different chords, but the one is in the same place. A little bit, yeah. One of the first viral YouTube videos is by a band, an Australian band,

called The Axis of Awesome. And they do a medley where they go through 30 or 40 songs that use these chord changes from Avril Levine and Bob Marley journey pointing out that you can put the different melodies and lyrics on top of the four chords. And what they share is the chord changes which no one can own, as we've talked about in many episodes. Writing Sideways, we were talking about earlier. It's another writing sideways method you can use.

Take the chord changes from any song. Just take that brick that you like, make a new song out. Take four bricks that you like. Rearrange them in this case. Take seven bricks. The with or without you bricks are those four chords and they rearrange them to make this chorus of this song. At some point, the brick please show up. There's one more bass moment I want to play for you

because in the bridge, he does a little thing, a little harmonic thing, which is kind of pleasing to listen to. After the pumbling eighth note riffs, he does this. A little chord, third, and a fifth. So he's playing the root with a third and then the root with a fifth. So he's just adding a little chordal,

a little harmonic interest during the bridge. I'll play the drums for you there so you can hear that together. this is the bridge, the little break before the final chorus. And then he starts coming back in. These guys know how to build. They know how to build. Build, build.

Tension release. That's the key to all this stuff. Lots of tension and then a huge satisfying release into that last chorus. What can we say about the guitar in this song? Let's listen to that iconic guitar riff. I believe guitar player or guitar world, one of those guitar magazines ranked it the number nine riff of all time recently. And here it is by Dave Cuning.

And then he, so that's the, Sort of the opening riff of the song. And it's fun listening to that after telling the story of Brandon getting the demo tape from him after answering the end of paper. Just picturing driving around the desert, like listening to that. I mean, I don't know if he had like a drum machine or something underneath it or how it was arranged. But what we just heard was very similar to what Brandon Flowers once heard. And that melody and those lyrics and the storytelling came into his head. So it's so evocative instantly.

I can see how he was inspired by it. Yeah. I mean, I think that guitar is so central to the song because it comes in like a classic YouTube song. Yeah. You know, there's there are very few songs that would come in with just a guitar, just a jangly guitar at the beginning. That's like a very edge thing to do. Yeah. The edge would add delay to it and kind of sort of sort of, it wouldn't be necessarily as dirty.

But the edge does a lot of like arpeggiated, Austin, out, kind of melodic, repeated melodic things, basically, under which you have Larry Mullen Jr. Adam Clayton doing a very similar thing to these guys with the drums and the eighth note baseline to keep it locked in. And the U-tunist really shines when you isolate these parts like that. And I'll go a step further and say that I feel like it's very unlofi New York to come in on just a guitar like that. You know what I mean? Like that actually, like as I feel like whether you're talking about blurs girls and boys or LCD sound systems, someone great. Those songs tend to come in with sort of like a grimy keyboard. But this song tends to come in with the guitar, which, like you said, could easily be the edge stepping out on stage.

It feels made for an arena performance. All I can say is yes and no, because don't forget that the Strokes album is This It Starts with. No, here's why it's different. Okay. All right. The strokes coming in on a drum is different. I'm talking specifically about echoey, jangly guitar. I can't think of one

song for Meet Me in the bathroom that starts with lone guitar I feel like they started with everything else Okay you might be right look What about um I'll take it I'll take the loss It's not never though

It's not never but it's not all the time I'm not sure that I'm trying to be disagreeable By the way it's only for how many measures was that I mean like it doesn't stay in there long For last night And by the way yes I think the last night guitar For Tom Petty's...

Exactly. American Girl. I'm thinking by my guns on this. The idea of like the lonely guitar. Like that to me, it screams arena. And in a way that like the other songs, they usually come in with like bass or like drums or something for the rhythm section. They don't typically do like the lonely sad man playing guitar in the middle of the stage for 8 million people. I'm going to hold my guns on this one a little bit

I think you might be honest something of that. If people want to point me out as being wrong I'm so into it. In my mind I was hearing a bunch of stroke songs that sound like that but you know not that many it turns out. Tonya I think the primacy of dancing and having a dance from that underground scene was so important that they didn't typically start off

with just a guitar. The lonely guitar. The Rapture does have a song that starts off. Echoes I think may start off with a lonely guitar. But other than that, when I can't think of any. Let's keep going. Okay, well, then the guitar goes into a sort of pre-chorus, sort of pre-pre-chorus.

I don't know what you call the section. Maybe the B of the verse. It doesn't really matter, but it sounds like this. Just a variation of that riff in different chords. So he's taking the same idea of riffing, of like the rhythmic aspect of that original riff and moving it to the 6-5-4 to set us up for the chorus. Let me just say, shout out to the pre-chorus.

We've talked a lot about pre-courses lately. It's a weird word. It's not a word I used a lot in my life before we started doing this podcast. But this is one of the greatest pre-courses of all time. When he makes you think he's going to say she's touching his somewhere else, he goes to it, chest now, he takes over a dress now. Like this pre-chorus is honestly, I think, the star of the show,

maybe even a little bit more than the chorus. I think if this pre-course is not there, this song does not have the success. That's that it has because anytime I think about this song, I always think of the pre-chorus as the beginning of a of a chorus explosion, if you will. You know, you're making such a strong point. This pre-chorus builds so much tension because if you were to go directly here, I'll just do it for fun. If we go directly from the verse to the chorus, it's not going to work. Yeah, how does this sound?

It would sound like this. You've never heard this before. We're doing this live. Go. It's jarring. How jarring was that? Our producer just did it like a, like it's jarring. to skip. He was speechless, is what you're saying. He didn't know what to do. He was catatonic.

Imagine the Beatles with Paul, Ringo, and George. It's just not the same group. That pre-chorus gives us a break from the emotion that we were having and builds this insane tension. So when the chorus finally comes in, it's such a release. I'm telling you. I think we've called it. The pre-chorus is the star of the show. The pre-cours is the star of the show. Well, I think you might be right with that. But nonetheless, I think we do need to hear the guitars in the chorus. Yes. And here they are. My God, I'm getting more flashbacks. Okay, I'm back to the cauldron just for a second. Just for a second, I'm in the

cauldron of envy. It's the cauldron of envy for people that have been listening to this whole podcast. By the way, the black cauldron was sampled by Crystal Method for the first song on the album, Vegas. It all comes full circle. Guys, we have a problem. We can't stop

forming connections. My earliest musical makings were more like this. I actually was making more of a post-punk thing. I hadn't really discovered mixing the dancingness and the drum machine stuff yet that I would sort of go on to do. And that's kind of been my thing ever since. More of a disco thing. I was making music because I'm hearing that and I'm like, oh my God, this sounds like so many of my 2003 demos where I'm doing crund dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and like a guitar doing a kind of you two cold play. Maybe I don't know what I thought in my mind.

Yeah, this is the out of bringing out thing on top. I think it's time to get into the sense. Look, that's a perfect segue because part of it. of what makes it stand out and makes it not in that realm is the fact that there were synths involved. That was kind of a risky thing in the moment. Yes. And the synths are very kind of charmingly simple, by the way. These are not programmed or sequenced.

They're clearly performed, I believe, by Brandon Flowers. When I look at early pictures of the band, I mean, he's literally using what my setup was. He's got the microcorg. And he's got, it's just reminding me of this era of, because it was not just me and Brandon that were doing it. There were a lot of bands that were bringing in dancingness. to their music and, you know, trying to tour the world and make it and be on the John Peel stage at Glastonbury. But the synths are really interesting on their own. Let's listen to, there's two of them.

Here is what I labeled as the dirty octave bass. Yeah. They get pretty buried. And actually, let me take those bass and guitar out. It is really subtle. I just want to hear it. It's pretty subtle, yeah. And then a second melody comes in on synth. And you can kind of hear that panned hard left.

everybody makes mistakes it reminds me of the you know what that sounds like to me that sounds like an LCD tribulations everybody makes mistakes I hear it too it sounds like it could be peaches you know like this is like it's so pieces it feels very much of the moment

in electronic it's very New York it's very Brooklyn Club Lux 2000 Larry T yeah so you know what so it bears Avenue D could you do me this favor could you give me everything in the song except for the

guitars. I just want to hear what that version sounds like. And you heard it here first because this version does not exist in the real world. I was so making this music. Here's the since. You could you could put like a 808. Dude, I'm telling you, that was the sound of the moment. Like an 808 like a drum machine underneath that. It would be perfect at Club, you know, Lux. It would be perfect at any electro-clash night. That's what we're saying. We're saying this could be a Fisher-Spooner B-size. It sounds like Fisher-Spooner. It sounds like, what was it, Electric Six? Danger, danger! Yeah.

Oh, I almost forgot about that. Electric 6 was in this world, too. Yes. Including the British fame, you know, right? They were bigger in England than I think they were ever in America. They, like, I think to this day, they still have an audience, a big audience there. Yeah. Could we take a step back just as artists and just say that like, if they had done the version that our taste would have driven it to, it would be a very different song.

And it would probably have a very different success. Do you always have to throw in the K rock guitars? Whatever that is in your field of art, do all of us have to at some point just imagine K-Rock? And then you just throw in the K-rock guitars. And then you can buy a boat and a fancy house and palace verdies. Like, clearly now I'm spiraling because I'm like, there are definitely been times where I'm like,

just add a crazy white neighbor to your show. Just throw that white crazy neighbor into South Side. You can borrow the caldron of envy. And you won't get three seasons. You'll get seven seasons because that, that, ah. We all need to be. in the call-tel. It would be just for a few moments.

And then you can give it back to me because there's more to come. Should have added a white neighbor. Should have added a white neighbor. Those synths make one more appearance in this song in the post-chorus. So after the vocals end, there's a little post-chorus melody

and it sounds a little bit like this. Here's the synth, and then I'll add back everything else you hear the mix. Which? It's just that really thin pad. I'm sorry. I think everything's borrowed.

What is that? Is that the Olympics? That's the Olympics? theme? It's composed by somebody, but I don't know who composed it. It sounds like the Olympics thing. It's done. It's play it and you'll hear it.

You'll be like, oh, yes, the Olympics. It's by John Williams. He wrote the Olympic fanfare and theme. Finally, John Williams has finally delivered on the promise of his early career. It's called Bugler's Dream. That song was originally composed in 1958 by French-American composer Leo Arnaud for his piece, bugler's dream. And now we think of it as the Olympics. And now we think of it as part and parcel of Brandon Flowers, master of master composition, Mr. Bright. There's something about

screaming the lyric, it's killing me, which is so good and so hilarious to me. So I think we have to break down some of these vocals. And by the way, such a good vocal performance on the behalf. You know, you say we need to break them down, but I'm, I'm not sure we need to because I'm, I don't know if I can handle it. There's too much. There's too much. There's too much. happening in the vocals here that I'm going to react to. But this is good for me. This is a therapeutic episode. I've dealt with the caldron of envy.

I'm going to deal with the vocals and the lyrics and everything about them that has bothered me all these years out of envy. And the first step is, the first step is admitting it. So I'm past step one. But you're being vulnerable. And I think that's one of the reasons why this song hits so hard. Because just like our recent Warren G episode where he was the one getting jacked, he was not jacking.

He was getting jacked. This is a song about a guy who is suffering. It's about a guy who is clearly not okay, which is funny because the very first line of the song is coming out of my cage. And I've been doing just fine. You know, like, you know, really? Guys, I'm fine. I always say there's no greater expression that things are not all good than, hey, all good. But you've never said all good and actually minted.

Like, all good always means there's something wrong. It's calling attention to how not good you are. It's definitely things are not all good. And he's coming out of his cage and he's doing just fine. And then he says this. Let's hear some Brandon. Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine. God, I gotta be down because I want it all.

It started out with a kiss. I did end up like this. It was only a kiss. It was only a kiss. The double up on it was only a kiss is hilarious to me. It's like he's literally telling himself, it was only a kiss. It was only a kiss. Listen, there's a lot to break down here.

I don't know why she's here. It was only a kiss. I don't know why she's there. but it's only a kiss. Yeah, yeah, suspicious. Like, you're just calling more attention to it. I'm not sure I'm buying what you're selling here. It's like, hey, I'm going to bring something up and it's not weird.

Like, it's immediately weird. Okay, I wasn't going to, I didn't think it was going to be weird. Now I think it's probably going to be weird. Not to insult you or anything, but, okay, that's about to be an insult. Exactly. Just a couple of things that, I mean, I'm noticing. The jump out to you. Yeah.

Jump out to me, obviously, is the two things about the delivery. One, Mr. Brandon Flowers, singing with the distortion, all of the strokes. Also, a monotone a la Iggy Pop. There's a song in particular that Mr. Flowers talks about being inspired by for this song, which was, On Less for Life, the song is called 16, and it sounds like this. Now, that song is called 16, and I mean, both Julian from the Strokes and Brando Flower were clearly influenced. The vocals are also distorted on the Iggy Pop song. And the distortion is why it sounds like it's coming out of a tin can or somebody singing in the closet.

But the monotode in this case is that delivered. It's basically one note. And in this verse, what we just heard, he's singing two notes. But it's really hovering over that one note. But by the way, you talk about the universal popularity of this song. Yes. This is not a hard song to sing. It's an easy song to sing.

Because he is staying within those. There's six notes in the entire song. Six notes. Yeah. And it's mostly just two. No wonder that's popular sporting events. It's mostly just two. When you're a couple of pints in, it's really easy to sing six notes.

It's easier to sing the two notes that are 80% of the song. That are most of the song. The other four notes are just for variety now and now. We're going to talk about this next line. We've got a couple things to say about it. 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. Touching his check.

She heard the whole thing. It just bothers me after all these years, but I'll play it for you. I'll play it for you because it was unsatisfying. What I did was cruel. But she's touching his. Now, he takes off her dress now, let me go. Still two notes. We're halfway through the song, basically.

A couple of things here. First off, I like any song that tells the story. This song at the time sort of remind me of, do you think I'm sexy? Because that's a story about another date. One could even argue that he's, Brandon's singing this song. meanwhile the other guy is singing a song much more aligned with what Rod Stewart

is singing about in Do You Think I'm Sexy? You know, because there he's met a girl But imagine that a dude who liked that girl Is like watching from afar. He could easily be singing Mr. Brightside While Rod Stewart's singing, Do You Think I'm Sexy? Play him back to back, you'll see what I mean. Well, yeah, let me let's talk about the origin of the song

Because I think you're right. The story of the song, as he puts it, is quote, I was asleep and I knew something was wrong. I have these instincts. I went to the crown and anchor, which is a pussion. in Las Vegas. And sure enough, my girlfriend was there with another guy. Perfect timing for getting this demo from the guy he just met on Craigslist, as it were.

And this song came pouring out because he was in the middle of that emotional moment of just having happened. I mean, I think it's important to point out that, like, the original drinking songs, a lot of the original pub songs had a sad subject as a topic. And this is almost like a 2004 version of that. It doesn't always have to be like celebration and happy times. Like, no, in fact, if you can come up with a song that has all the pub song elements, but is actually in some ways bittersweet or sad,

or in this case, extremely vulnerable because he's sad that like he caught his girlfriend cheating, like it kind of makes sense that this song would be popular, not just at sporting events, but also in the pub. And in the land of the pubs, aka the UK. Listen, before we get to the chorus, and it's really important that we do because in that pre-chorus we've set up a lot of tension. We're needing some release. We're needing some release. But before that, we do have to talk about Brandon Flowers has been very open about talking about his inspiration. So he talks about, quote, when I look back now,

I see little things that helped. For example, we mentioned already the Iggy Pop song, the delivery in particular, the Strokes album that made him, you know, discarded the rest of the catalog that was in the song. He also mentions, I Feel You by Depeche Mode. The Pet Shop Boys song, Jealousy. which maybe all he took was the word as inspiration. And last but certainly not least, as he quote says, I almost stole Bowie's queen bitch, but I didn't quite. So what he's referring to, I love that song. It's such a great song.

It's a great Bowie song. It's from Hunky Dory, 1971, and it sounds a little like this. As Brandon says, I was obsessed with Hunky Dory when I was 19. Quote, there's an urgency to that, and it felt like he meant business. So I was like, all right, I want to do that. And the word urgency struck out to me, because that's what I'm hearing in this, too, the urgency of the delivery of those lines, the specific line that he sings about phoning a cab because my stomach feels small versus now I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab. There's a taste of my mouth. There's no taste at all. Could have been me. The way he sings that could have been me. I'm going to just keep going with writing sideways because there's inspiration that when you listen back to back, it's like, oh, he was and he admits it when he directly points out that he was inspired. by this song and those elements of it, you can hear it. But I mean, my mission in life is to point out, like, that's normal for creativity. This isn't stealing anything that anyone owns because it's not the

melody, it's not the lyrics, it's a vibe, it's the use of rhythmic language, it's the idea of a cab being weighted on. He's pieced that together with other things that aren't the Bowie song and putting it in a context and sonically and the chords. It's different. It has some similar aspects. It's got some borrowed little thieving magpie bits and pieces, but he's completely reconstructed it and added his own voice and his own storytelling to it. Very importantly, his own storytelling, his own voice is what makes it his. I love it. And then we explode into this chorus. Oh my God, we've been building to the chorus, haven't we? We've earned it. So let's hear that chorus with the vocals isolated my man. Jealousy, turning saints into the sea, swimming through siglo

I have to give this man, Brandon Flowers, incredible props for, that might be a perfect chorus, isn't it? Really? I mean, I'm just listening to it isolated now. First of all, do you notice how the first part of it, it's almost underwhelming. The way it starts out, like isolated, we just heard.

Now, when you add the music back, it's epic, but that's the music doing the heavy lifting. Okay, my take on the chorus is that, as we've been said, this group is all about builds. We haven't lifted anywhere in the first half, but in the second half, we get the lift. That's the part that I'm like really noticing for the first time. And it's so gratifying.

When we hit the word destiny is calling me, that's like peak, peak, peak. But it's just the price I pay. Destiny is calling me. Open up my eager eyes. Because I'm Mr. Bryce. Side side. Do you think I think the peak is open up my eager eyes?

You're right, you're right. There's two really delicious moments that follow one from the other. When you're at Destiny, it's one of those song things where you're like, this is the best part. Oh shit, no, this is the best part. You went higher. Yeah, exactly. I'll play them for you and I'll play it isolated again and then add back the mix. Starting with the first half where, like I said, to me, the vocals by themselves are a little bit like, I say underwhelming, not because they're bad, but just because like, that's not where the work's coming from.

It's coming from the music. I'll just play it and we can discuss. Jealousy, turning saints into the sea. And then here it is, we can just contrast it, and then I'll add it back. Destiny is calling me. And it's also pretty satisfying to end with the, Mr. Bright side of line. Yeah, because, you know, he's basically saying that the delusion is going to continue. You said that he needed delusion to make it in the music business.

But this song is literally about delusion and the fact that he feels like he has to go along with this, facade. But it feels healthy the way he's saying it, don't you think? Like, I'm Mr. Brightside. I have an optimistic. I don't know. I have an optimist. I feel like if he was my friend, I'd be like, bro. You're in denial. If I was his friend, I'd probably use the word bro like that. Here's what I can say about the chorus that I really appreciate. Jealousy, anytime you can sing it or wrap it in a chorus, it always makes me happy. I go back to the ghost face killer has a song called Jealousy. And it starts off, you've got better sneakers than mine. Like, you know, that's just a level of vulnerability. Most songwriters are not willing to go to.

But that being said, the one part of this chorus that I never quite got until just now, until just today. I always got choking on your alibi because he's clearly, she's saying she was somewhere else and he's like, yeah, sure, I believe that's the case. You know, but like, when it comes to

swimming through sick lullabies, I never got it, now I understand, because he says it's all in his head. Yeah. So the sick lullaby is basically when you put yourself to sleep full of negative thoughts. Yeah. When you're basically going to bed full of just like, oh, how am I going to pay the bills?

Why are we not getting along? Like anything that's really troubling you and you fall asleep to that? Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what swimming through sick lullabies means. And this is why I like doing the show because we do get to hear songs that we've heard 18 million times. Sometimes we have the lyrics wrong. Sometimes we have the lyrics right, but we didn't quite know what they were trying to express.

I am thoroughly convinced that I understand this. song in ways now that I never understood it before. Yeah, I think I do too. Here's something Brandon said about that chorus. He says, quote, the anthemic quality is me trying to beat Oasis is don't look back in anger. Very specifically the song we talked about earlier. And U2's where the streets have no name. Wow. So again, the Brandon Flowers formula being strokes plus U2 plus Oasis equals success, he was right. He was right to like piece all those things together with a little bit of Bowie and a little bit of Iggy pop and a little bit of these other things in there. Our goal here is to not strip all the cool magic veneer off of this song or any song that we break down.

But it is interesting to hear somebody speak so, I'll say honestly, about like what they were aiming for. Well, especially because the quote ends with, quote, it's insane to think that that's what I was thinking about at the time, meaning their first song ever when he was 20 and they didn't even have a drummer or a bass player yet. But that's what I was thinking about. So the creative delusion, it's right there in the chorus. It was a magic moment that he was able to piece together all these things and make it so

successful and to resonate. One more thing I do want to point out, I mean, listen, the first time I heard this song, the thing that really jumped out to me was how similar it was to this other song that I'm about to play for you. It's a very simple similarity, but I've never been able to unhear this. It's just that minor seventh. Jealousy. Yeah, I can hear it. What's happening is that on the downbeat, the chord, the one chord, you're getting the major seven. It's like a half step down. So it's dissonant for a millisecond. And then you resolve right away to the one.

Duh is weird. Satisfying. Dissinant and weird unresolved. Jealousy. Delosy. Dreaming. There's also another song that was in the air at the same time, which was this song by Placebo called Special K, which did the same thing.

What's crazy is I know this song. Yeah. And I have never connected to two. I've never connected to jealousy, gravity. It's just two notes. I know. I know. Yes.

These are not accusations that anyone's going to go to court over. But it is a very specific melodic idea to do on the downbeat of the one to be on that weird dissonant major seventh half step down. And then you resolve. You brought up the wrong band, man. Placevo, I used to love the cruel intention soundtrack. Every you, every me. Yes. There was a pure morning.

That guy had a great voice. Brian Mulco, yeah. Okay, cool. Loved placebo, did not know we were going to be. Gravity. Yeah, jealousy, dreaming. This is why I give Nolan Liam a lot of leeway because I'm sorry, there are a lot of people doing this. So the Killers had quite a few popular songs on their first album.

You know, Hot Fuss, I would argue, it's ironic in the sense of thrillers' first single being The Girl is Mine. You know, like, I love somebody told me, but, you know, Mr. Brightside is on there, and you've got other songs on there. All these things that I've done is, like, such a classic, classic song. And they applied a rule that we've talked about a lot on this show, which is, when in doubt, put a girl's name in the title. Yes. Because Jenny was a friend of mine. There's, Believe Me, Natalie. You know, one of my favorite songs from this era, the rule also applies is Stella.

Stella was a diver and she was always down by Interpol. Obviously, previously on the show, we've talked about everything from Marine by Charday to Renee by the Lost Boys. But Mr. Brightside is far in a way their most popular song, and it stood the test of time. As of the recording of this podcast, it was one of the first songs of the 2000s to hit one billion streams and it just keeps going.

You know, you said something earlier, speaking of the impact, like the whole fact of there being anglophilia in Branden Flowers as a child, right, like listening to the cure tapes in the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He brings that anglophilia and this like 80s music into his music and then is popular in England before he's popular in America.

And although he's, the band is still huge in America, it really, they're iconic status in England. They're up there with like the oasis. And you two. And you two. No, something you said earlier about the single singability of the song really struck with me because I'm thinking about the sort of British phenomenon of like pub singalongs.

Yes. And like, you know, and stadium chants and like the White Stripes Seven Nation Army is another big stadium chant. And this one fits into that category. And I think Oasis has a bunch of stadium chants as well. So it's interesting that they found their stadium chant. And they joined the pantheon of British iconic bands, but they're from Las Vegas. And I'm looking at your hand gesticulation.

I mean, you have to do this. Which you can see on YouTube, that chorus just loads itself. Jealousy. Like, it's theatrical. It's sort of operatic theatrical. The European tradition, sort of maybe more than the preacher. tradition. It's not like, it is a little bit churchy, but it's like, it's also sea shanty-ish, you know what I mean? Like, there's also this British tradition of sea shanty

sing-along. It's actually got that a little more than I'd say the American church tradition, but they do that in the song you just alluded to, right, which is all the things I've done. I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier. Another line that bothered the hell out of me when I heard it. But then, so what's truly infuriating is that when they play that at live eight in July 2005. Robbie Williams, another British icon, pop star.

They didn't quite make it huge over here, but he interpolated that song. I used to love it. songs, but go ahead. Coldplay and you, too, interpolated that line from that song when they played in Vegas. And they played on the White House lawn in 2010

for President Barack Obama in the second annual salute to the military. These guys, the legacy, like, they impacted culture so quickly and so massively. It's just really mind-blowing with this, their first song they have. ever wrote. Yeah, I agree with that. And here's what else is interesting about the killers.

Are they a part of the last big wave of bands? I mean, like, I... Of rock and roll music. The death of rock. We've talked about it on the show. This is one of the first years where there was no band in the current top 100. I think you're nailing it. Yeah. Rock exists. We're not saying there's no rock anymore. But it doesn't dominate the conversation. Like all things, everything is temporary, right? Yeah. This might be a completely temporary condition. But you do wonder like does it take five guys playing instruments splitting the money five ways five or four or three white stripes is two but do we really want our music generated that way obviously there are always going to be some singer songwriters like a person with the acoustic guitar i don't think that goes anywhere

but the idea of the band uh it does seem to have fallen out of favor in a big big way in the last it's again there are still bands it's still exciting to put together a bunch of musicians in a room and to jam and to perform live. But it doesn't dominate the cultural conversation in the same way as it did in this moment. No. Sort of arguably. There were still tons of bands. There were still tons of bands in the aughts.

Yeah. And then you look up now and it's literally pop singer, rapper, and solo artists. Look, I just counterpoint to that again. There are still good bands. I was just listening to it. I'm not saying that's better. I'm just observing. No, no, no.

It's flipped. Whatever what was they were the dominant sort of thing. happening in pop culture and the cover of the enemy, et cetera. You know, to this day, I think it's, it's in the last 20 years, it's certainly declined precipitously. But there are still great bands making music. I was just listening to the new Voids record, which is Julian from the Strokes is, I don't know if he calls it the side project, but his other project.

It's so good. Yeah. It inspired me and I was sort of like, oh, I kind of want to do something. Everybody Mike Rielstein told me about that. So they're so good. So they're bands. Last thing I'll also say is that, to your point, it does pay to do right by people. the fact that they are decently evenly split, you know, in terms of song.

You can still go see the killers. I was in Vegas just last summer and ran into a friend of mine who was there to see the killers. Like the fact that they did it that way means that this band still probably has a lot of good will towards one another. And they're still out there performing. Listen, I think I'm over my jealousy. I think that this episode has been therapeutic. I think I'm going to put the cauldron away. I'm going to pour some ice cubes into it and cool it off.

And I genuinely have come out of this experience, a fan of this band and this song. So I want to thank you for helping guide me there on this precipitous vulnerable journey. Well, my bill is in the mail. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. Do you want to go first? Sure. I mean, listen, this story that we've gone through today had me remembering those earliest days of writing my first songs,

which reminded me that the moment I had my sex pistols moment when I saw a band called The Faint open up for no doubt. My little sister dragged me to see No Doubt on her behalf. And the opening band was from Omaha and they sounded like this.

The song is worked up so sexual from the Faint's first record, Blank Wave Arcade. So good, man. I remember I was so inspired by this band because of the sound, because of the energy. This is like fast 80s inspired dance music.

And then the lyrics were about like, well, this song's about a sex worker, and I was just like, wow, you can do that? So the earliest incarnation of luxury was me kind of trying to do that. That's great. Yeah. How about you, Diyah? What did you bring for your One More Song? So for my One More Song today, I want to play a song that I think I only would have discovered because I was listening to the BBC at the time.

It's by a band called Manson, M-A-N-S-U-N. And this was a song that I really, really like. It's called I Can Only Disappoint You. very British and just a very cool song from my time. Listen to the BBC. That's a cool song and I got it. This episode is an outlier perhaps in the canon.

I think it's one of our best, by the way. But like I keep on thinking about myself. And like I keep going back to my own musical because I wrote a song which was called I will only disappoint you. What? I didn't know that. In this era.

Yeah, I never finished it. It's one of like, you know, the ratio of things you start to finish. But like that lyric, that line was like going through my head. head for a long time. That line, it's interesting to hear it sung back at me like, oh my God, like, they finished my song. This might be an opportunity for us to take a brick and maybe build something new. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, please, please, please, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can send us DMs, keep them appropriate. You can find me on Instagram at Dialla, D-L-O, and on TikTok at DiL-L-R-R-L-O. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-U-R-Y,

and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And if you've made it this far, are, I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share it with people that you think might like it because it helps keep this show going. Luxury, help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell. And this is one song. We'll see you next time.