Mr. Brightside

* Single
* Remixes

## Single by The Killers

"**Mr. Brightside**" is the debut single by The Killers, released on September 29, 2003. It appeared as the lead single and second track from their debut studio album, *Hot Fuss* (2004), with a collection of remixes released on September 3, 2003. It was named as the band's first song they ever wrote, where they performed it at concerts around Las Vegas and handed out demo tapes. Despite it being their first single from the album, the track initially received a lackluster response, while the re-release in 2004 peaked the charts, attaining #10 in both the US and UK. It spent five years on the UK's top 100 singles charts and as of July 2022, went 14× platinum in Australia. It was nominated for a Grammy in 2006 for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The demo was later released on the deluxe version of their compilation album, *Direct Hits* (2013).

The term "Mr. Brightside" refers to a person who looks at the positive side of situations, taking on the idiom "look on the bright side". The song is about betrayal, where the narrator addresses jealousy and paranoia, suspecting their romantic partner's cheating on them.

## Background

It was revealed that Keuning first composed it in his Las Vegas apartment. He shared, "I had my amp in the closet surrounded by clothes. It was a nice sound-proofing thing. I just plugged in and was messing around. I was actually getting a sound, so I held this fingering. I just kept playing it like, 'Well, where should I go from here?' I kept playing that, and then it goes to the pre-chorus later. I laid all that down on my four-track at the time. It just felt cool. I knew I had something." When he met Brandon Flowers, he gave the recording and "When he came back, he had the lyrics and the vocal melody for it [...] I instantly loved what he did with it. Then we added the chorus together right there—not sure exactly how that came about. I think he had the chords or we just played them." Flowers recalled in an interview with *NME*, "We must've written it around the end of 2001. Dave and I were writing a ton of songs at the time, trying to figure out what it was that made us tick. I remember us going into the Virgin Megastore to buy (The Strokes') 'Is This It' on the day it came out and, when we put it on in the car, that record just sounded so perfect." After they brought in drummer Matt Norcross, whom they came across from an advert in *CityLife*, Norcoss was impressed and remarked, "It was definitely something different from what was being played on the radio at the time. The songs didn't sound like everything that was coming out then." In November 2001, they recorded at the Kill the Messenger studio for a four-track demo that included songs "Under the Gun," "Desperate," and "Replaceable." Flowers said, "I remember having butterflies a little bit going in, being nervous. It was the first time paying for studio time. The red light's on. The clock's ticking. You only have so much time to make these demos. It felt thrilling just to be in there, in a studio, doing it." Next, Norcross handed the demo to Laurie Steele, who at the time was a radio host at 92.3's "Homegrown Show," where they aired the band, who favored "Desperate" at the time over "Mr. Brightside." The band first performed it live in 2002 for an open-mic session at the venue, Cafe Espresso Roma. After the departure of Norcross, drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. and bassist Mark Stoermer joined the band in the creation of a new demo, to which Flowers described that "they really elevated it." They signed a deal with UK record label Lizard King, who released the song as a 7-inch single.

## Composition

The song's lyrics were inspired by Flowers' breakup, where he caught his girlfriend cheating on him at the British-themed bar, Crown and Anchor. He met guitarist Dave Keuning around this time, who had already written the backing track, and the lyrics started to pour out. Concerning the structure, Flowers admitted he had not written a second verse, and stuck to repetition. He told *Spin*, "At first, all I heard was the riff. The lyrics came later. This was before cell phones came along... when I first heard those chords, I wrote the lyrics down and we didn't waste much time. We went in and made demos pretty quickly after that, and it took a ton of time. That's also why there's not a second verse. The second is the same as the first. I just didn't have any other lines and it ended up sticking." He added to another source, "One of the memories I do have of being at Kill the Messenger is being in the vocal booth and having the lyrics on paper, looking at an unfinished second verse and that clock's ticking. You paid for it. It's like, 'What do you do? Mumble through this, the second verse?' I opted to just sing the first verse again. It ended up sticking." The song was based on Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger," serving as the "follow-up". Flowers was vocally inspired by David Bowie's "Queen Bitch," in terms of tempo with the "urgency," and also attempted to emulate Iggy Pop for "monotone delivery." Additionally, he used Bowie's particular lyric, 'And I'm phoning a cab / 'Cause my stomach feels small.' It was the only song they decided not to scrap for the album, *Hot Fuss*, Flowers revealing, "I got so depressed after that, we threw away everything and the only song that made the cut and remained was 'Mr. Brightside.'"

Mixer Mark Needham commented about the track, "It was just so aggressive and punk and indie, but with such a big pop chorus. It kind of pushed all those buttons." He shared in an interview:

"That was a development project that I worked on with two partners of mine from San Francisco, CA. We worked with the band for about a year and we had close to the entire album recorded, and were trying to shop it around, but nobody really wanted it. 'Mr. Brightside' was the first song we produced, and I mixed that on an 8 input console, with no automation, in about 35 minutes.
That's the mix that ended up on the record, even though I wanted to redo it. I knew the band was great and I was a big fan of them, but we got turned down by almost everybody in the industry in the US. So, we ended up signing the band in the UK and then came back to the US.
I felt the music was really good, but it's hard to know if it's going to be one of those '...holy crap, this thing is going to sell a million records.' I was happy to see how successful it became, because they were an exceptional band and had universally appealing songs."
Concerning the vocal effect, Needham said, "There were three of us involved in the production company on that record: Braden Merrick, Jeff Saltzman and myself. Jeff and I had been partners for a few years. He was an entertainment attorney and was shopping stuff, but he actually really wanted to be a producer as well. We set Jeff up with a studio, got him started in recording and since he's a smart guy, he picked it up really quick. At that time, Echo Farm had just come out, and that was really the only vocal effect he had. If you open up Echo Farm, the first setting that comes up is the default setting, which overdrives the vocal a bit and sets an 84 ms delay. That was basically what he put on everything and it sort of became the default vocal tone on the whole record, plus it worked really great, so we kept it. It changes a little bit on certain things, but it was a fairly consistent effect through the whole record."

## Reception

In a review by Mike Prevatt of the newspaper *Las Vegas CityLife*, he wrote positively about the demo version, "It's energetic, New Wave garage—a feel-good, Strokes-esque anthem that ranks as one of the best local track in a long time." *Far Out* magazine observed it being a great karaoke song, "'Mr. Brightside' is perhaps the greatest case for simplicity being the primary goal in songwriting: with just five main melodic notes, including around 60 per cent of the song literally just being a single solitary note, coupled with only a single verse to memorize, the ability to recall 'Mr. Brightside' happens quickly and relatively accurately."

## Music video

The first music video was directed by Brad Palmer and Brian Palmer, filmed in April 2004 in Staten Island, New York. Set in black and white with the band performing, Flowers recalled, "We made an indie version of the video probably months before this on the East Coast and it wasn't as much of a production."

The second music video was directed by Sophie Muller. It was filmed during November 2004 in Los Angeles, California, and starred Flowers, Izabella Miko, and Eric Roberts in a love triangle. Muller shared to *StudioDaily*, "As usual, the idea came from the band and I talking about ideas and visuals. The lead singer Brandon said that he really liked *Moulin Rouge!* That shocked me as it seemed so unlikely for a rock band, but once he said it my mind exploded with all the fabulous theatrical possibilities. The only scene that's not pure film is the one on the balcony, where there's fireworks and he touches her hand, which was inspired by *Moulin Rouge!* We did that with green screen, and then my friend Zack Niederlander created a generic European cityscape by comping a bunch of photos to give this very innocent, almost Disneyesque look to the scene." She continued, "In the scenes where the band's playing, we used these curtains behind them that were made out of thousands of pieces of broken-up Christmas baubles in a mosaic pattern. Laura Fox came up with the curtain idea and it took ten people, three days to make them, including myself. I barely had to talk to DP Steve Chivers about the lighting. He knows exactly what I like, which is 'light from the front and then add backlight for the glamour.' So the look is very theatrical and as beautiful as possible. It's not meant to be moody and dark. [...] The shots at the end, where it's vaguely out of focus and it's a flashback of loving memory, we shot with pinhole photography—I wanted a bit where it looked like some old photo."

Flowers stated about the visual, "When you start a band, these kinds of scenarios are actually the furthest thing from your mind. It never felt natural to me to make a music video. It still doesn't. It's hard enough for us to finish a song [on] an album." He added that they got their band name from New Order's "Crystal" music video, where a fictitious band 'The Killers' performed. In homage to that, they added the band idea, which was the "genius sex poets" and was also shown in "When You Were Young".

## Credits and personnel

### Song

* Brandon Flowers – vocals, lyricist, synths
* Dario Dendi – recording engineer
* Dave Keuning – guitar, lyricist
* Dave Stedronsky – recording engineer
* Jeff Saltzman – production, recording engineer
* Mark Needham – recording engineer, mixer
* Mark Stoermer – bass vocals
* Ronnie Vannucci – drums
* The Killers – production
* Will Brierre – recording engineer

### Video

* Grant Jue – producer
* Laura Fox – production designer
* Oil Factory – production company
* Sophie Muller – director, editor, colorist
* Steve Chivers – cinematographer

## Release history

* CD
* contemporary hit radio

## Trivia

* Appears on the soundtrack for the film *The Holiday* (2006)
* Featured in *Rabbit Without Ears* (2007)
* Featured in *About Time* (2013)
* Featured in *I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here*
* Popular among Michigan Wolverines football fans at Michigan Stadium
* One known moment was in Glastonbury 2019, where thousands of fans sang along
* In 2020, it became a song during quarantine, and was used for protests against police brutality, referring to 'Now she's calling ACAB.'

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Verse]

Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine

Gotta, gotta be down because I want it all

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?

It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss

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

[Pre-Chorus]

Chest now, he takes off her

Dress now, let me go

And I just can't look, it's killing me

They're taking control

[Chorus]

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea

Swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis

But it's just the price I pay, destiny is calling me

Open up my eager eyes, 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside

[Bridge]

[Verse]

I'm coming out of my cage, and I've been doing just fine

Gotta, gotta be down because I want it all

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?

It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss

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

[Pre-Chorus]

Chest now, he takes off her

Dress now, let me go

'Cause I just can't look, it's killing me

They're taking control

[Chorus]

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea

Swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis

But it's just the price I pay, destiny is calling me

Open up my eager eyes, 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside

[Bridge]

[Outro]

I never

I never

I never

I never

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Newstead, Al (September 29, 2021). "Mr. Brightside: The Killers' enduring hit that might live forever". *Triple J*.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Luling, Todd Van (July 12, 2013). "The History Of 'Mr. Brightside' By The Killers, 10 Years Later". *Huffpost*.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bracelin, Jason (February 4, 2021). "How the biggest rock song of the century came from a small Las Vegas apartment". *Las Vegas Review-Journal*.
4. ↑ "Why Mr Brightside is The Killers' saddest song". *Radio X*. April 1, 2021.
5. ↑ Savage, Mark (April 1, 2021). "Mr Brightside: The hit that just won't die". *BBC News*.
6. ↑ Carley, Brennan (May 8, 2015). "Brandon Flowers Lists His 10 Favorite Brandon Flowers Songs". *Spin*.
7. ↑ Grow, Kory (September 29, 2018). "The Killers: How We Wrote 'Mr. Brightside'". *Rolling Stone*.
8. ↑ "Psychology of a Mix Engineer: An Interview With Mark Needham". February 1, 2014.
9. ↑ Golsen, Tyler (December 22, 2021). "What's That Sound? Why 'Mr. Brightside' is so easy to sing along to". *Far Out*.
10. ↑ Kennedy, Sharon and Blair, Iain (May 1, 2005). "The Killers' "Mr. Brightside"". StudioDaily.
11. ↑ "The Killers - The Killers Comment on Mr. Brightside (Watch This) | Vevo". *YouTube*. April 27, 2020.
12. ↑ "New Releases: Singles". *Music Week*, page 39. September 27, 2003.
13. ↑ "New Releases: Singles". *Music Week*, page 31. May 22, 2004.
14. ↑ "Going for Adds". *Radio & Records*, issue 1576, page 35. October 8, 2004.
15. ↑ "Going for Adds". *Radio & Records*, issue 1589, page 21. January 14, 2005.
16. ↑ Gallucci, Nicole (June 15, 2020). "'Mr. Brightside' by The Killers hits different now'. *Mashable*.