The enduring popularity of Mr Brightside

By Cormac McCarthy

Picture the scene. 

It’s a Saturday evening. You’re out on the town at a time far too late to be considered a reasonable hour and you’re ready to go home. You’ve already decided if you’re taking a taxi or the bus. Your friend glances at you with a wearisome look.

Its then that the DJ plays the first few bars of Mr. Brightside and a sudden blast of energy comes over you and everyone else in the pub, to make you last just another 15 minutes. As the last few screeches of “I Never!” drown out every other sound, you’d be happy to do it again next week just as you have done the week before and the week before that. 

What is quite incredible is the sheer longevity of this particular song. Its ability to run the gauntlet of popular music while still being accessible to a more modern, younger audience is quite extraordinary. 

Ever since The Killers released this song in 2003 , their very first single mind you, it has remained for a combined total of over 6 years in the UK top 100 singles charts and has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. To this day, it is still in the charts and ranks at 48 on Rolling Stones’ list of greatest songs of the 21st century. 

As proof of a general love of the song, The Killers themselves have never gone a single concert without it. They, like the crowds that come to see them, have clearly not tired of it and don’t seem to be getting there any time soon. 

It is a party playlist staple and either loved or hated by everyone who knows it. But just what is it about the music and the lyrics themselves that causes this tune to rise above the rest, giving a seemingly endless enjoyment. By breaking it down it’s easy to see why. 

First, that iconic guitar riff. Like any earworm, Mr. Brightside wastes no time with familiarities. The opening chords with the descending bass line both introduce the lightning fast speed of 148 bpm as well as the reckless tone of the music itself. The guitar itself only plays 6 relatively simple chords throughout the entire song which also lends itself as an easy song to learn for those starting out on the instrument. 

For a song to remain in the subconscious of the general public, the listener has to have familiarity with the song before they can even register the name or the artist itself. There is a similar occurrence in Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” and Two Door Cinema Club’s “What you Know”. The song has already been registered by the listener before they even have a chance to think. 

The melody itself is another example of what makes a song enjoyable; the ability for the listener to sing along. The verses themselves are just one note throughout and the pre-chorus and chorus jump to three notes. It is almost like a football chant in that regard, where the enjoyability of the song is within a group setting. We all like to sing, either to ourselves or with others. Mr. Brightside provides very little barriers to this collective enjoyment in its simple melody and catchy hooks. 

The final refrain of “I never” is the curtain call of the song itself, giving every enjoyer one final phrase to enjoy with each other. 

The lyrics themselves are another side of the story, as the song itself is really just a short 90 second tune doubled in order to make it into  a full length pop song. Brandon Flowers is very much aware of this and remarked in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, “I hadn’t written a second verse so I just sang it again.”

The lyrics tell a story of a bitter envy on the part of the narrator. Flowers wrote them while at the end of a long relationship when he was just 20 years old. The narrator tells the reluctant story of his girlfriend’s infidelity. His sense of paranoia comes through in the pre-chorus “I just can’t look, it’s killing me, and taking control.” He leaves this angry path behind him and tries to be positive, he tries to be “Mr.Brightside”. 

These lyrics, universal in theme and simple in melody, come together to become a club thumping standard of our age. It has not fizzled out into obscurity by any means. The album Hot Fuss, on which it features, has been certified platinum 8 times in the UK and 4 times in the US.  

When asked in 2018 about the legacy of the song, Flowers himself agreed, “There’s an anthemic quality in the pre-choruses, and we learned a lot about things like that from listening to Oasis”. Indeed, similar to the likes of “Wonderwall” or “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, it’s hard to put your finger on the exact reason for its effects on people. 

But it’s guaranteed that every time those first few notes ring out, it won’t be long until everyone is chanting the lyrics in unison.