The Killers’s arguably most famous song, Mr.Brightside, is basically the song of many an adolescence including my own. It speaks of many emotions such as love, happiness, jealousy, or denial. Emotions that makes us human, and help form ourselves. The song shares similarities with the poem Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley in the form of content.  

  To clarify, the lyrics of the song and the poem can be seen can be seen as an analogy to one another. The first line of the song “Coming out of my cage” rather evokes the image of a bird flying free after being let out. The following line “And I’ve been doing just fine” shows hints of denial and perhaps jealousy. Similarly, the author of Skylark, despite writing in an overall triumphant tone, shows hints of jealousy (perhaps of the bird’s freedom), which only seems to develop even further. Finally the third to last stanza, give voice directly to his jealousy in his statement; “I know not how thy joy we ever should come near”, saying that mankind will never attain the bird’s joy.

    To round back, this ties in to the song. It is interesting that almost the entire song (verse, pre-chorus, chorus) repeats itself as if saying the cycle is endless and maintained. Like how the second half of the chorus speaks of doing one’s job “But it’s just the price I pay, Destiny is calling me, Open up my eager eyes, ‘Cuz I’m Mr. Brightside.” This is much like Shelley’s sentiment of the skylark towards the end of the poem. He recognizes and is agonized by its freedom and apparent happiness. But, he endures and carries on with his duty of observing and writing down its actions (in the same tone of one describing a king no less).

The tone of the song and the poem also share similarities. The lyrics speak of someone setting aside himself to achieve what he wants “Gotta, gotta be down because I want it all”. Similar to how may Shelley mask his dislike of the bird, evidence by lines such as “What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?”, as if the bird was so transcendent it knows not of such emotion (in an accusatory undertone).

Ultimately, I believe Mr. Brightside’s lyrics and Shelley’s Skylark makes an unexpected but interesting duo. They are both about a myriad of emotions that in the end makes us human.

Royalty-free Image: Suter, Benjamin. Pexels.com, https://www.pexels.com/photo/scenic-photo-of-dramatic-sky-2361997 

The full lyrics of Mr. Brightside can be seen here :https://genius.com/The-killers-mr-brightside-lyrics

The video can be watched here :