Read My Mind

It’s a semi-autobiography about songwriter Brandon Flowers. In real life, Flowers moved to Utah when he was young from Las Vegas, but always wanted to return to his birthplace. He sings about how he’s got the ability (the green light) to leave Vegas and he’s got the drive (a little fight) to leave. He also sings “A broken wrist and a big trapeze” meaning that taking a risk can be dangerous. So changes can be good or bad regardless what kind, they can have negative effects on us. Flowers mentions taking a risk to leave his old life, the trapeze is basically an allusion back to Vegas. After his return to Vegas, he sees that there’s something unexpected, “a city wall and a trampoline” which symbolizes a barrier, most likely the one he faced from living most of his life in a small town and the shock of moving back to a big city. The trampoline is not only an allusion to Las Vegas but also as a way to help him over the wall. In a live Q&A session on Facebook, Flowers said that ‘Read My Mind’ is his favorite Killers song, he said: “It doesn’t matter if we’re in a bar or an arena or a stadium or a festival or to 50 people, when ‘Read My Mind’ starts, the room changes. I guess it’s strange to have reverence for something that you had a part in creating but I guess I’m just thankful for that song.”
In an interview with NME, Flowers explained that this song was a totally different one called “Little Angela” and that it had a Rock beat to it telling a love story, he said: “My melody was a little too much like ‘Mrs. Robinson,’ the lyrics weren’t great, and Alan (Moulder) had the balls and the courage to tell me, he said ‘Let’s keep this template, and write a different song over it.’ So the song was born out of us jamming that old song, and it grew from there.” He told Rolling Stone Magazine that Andy Moulder got into an argument over this song during the recording, he explained: “I heard Alan say, ‘We’re trying to make “Peggy Sue” into “With Or Without You,'” which came as a blow because he was basically saying my lyrics weren’t good enough. So I started singing different melodies, and in two hours it was a whole new song. I think it’s the best song we’ve ever written.” He added that the new lyrics drew more from his own life experiences.

Release Date: February 13, 2007

Songwriter/s: Brandon Flowers – Dave Keuning – Mark Stoermer – Ronnie Vannucci, Jr.

Label: Island – Vertigo

Chart Rankings:

Artist’s age on Release Date: The American rock band was active for 6 years when they released this song.

Cover Versions: Catfish and the Bottlemen – Leif Vollebekk – Sophie Koster – very few Youtubers covered this song.