“Mr. Brightside” is known as a Mizzou anthem for everyone except its creator
| December 08, 2022 | Sports,
It’s Kansas hate week on campus at the University of Missouri, and as tip off of the first Border War basketball game in Columbia in nearly a decade creeps closer, if there’s one thing you can bet your life on, it’s that you can’t go anywhere without hearing The Killers’ 2003 anthem “Mr. Brightside.” The now 19-year-old song, originally written to illustrate the feelings writer and lyricist Brandon Flowers had after discovering his girlfriend cheating at a bar in his native Las Vegas, has been adopted by students at the University of Missouri as the official song of hating Kansas Athletics (and no, don’t come at me with “We Are Mizzou” takes. That song sucks).
By my unofficial count, “Mr. Brightside” graced KCOU’s airwaves 473 times this week alone. The song will almost certainly be played during a media timeout at the basketball game on Saturday, and the MU student section will belt the song out, along with some, shall we say, unofficial lyrics, which often accompany the song. With all the fanfare and commotion the song causes around town, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the confines of Columbia who doesn’t understand the artificial meaning that the song holds for this university; however, if there’s one person who might not know what this song means for Mizzou, it’s the song’s author.
According to everyone’s favorite online concert database, setlist.fm, The Killers have never performed in the city limits of Columbia, Missouri. In fact, by my tally, they’ve only ever performed 11 times in the state of Missouri over their nearly two decade long touring history (seven times in St. Louis, four in Kansas City). As far as my research revealed to me, lead singer Brandon Flowers did not go to college, and in any case he definitely didn’t graduate from any NCAA D1 athletics school. In fact, as far as my research revealed, the only inclination he showed towards sports in general was in San Diego in 2012 when he wore a jersey of the former Chargers defensive back with whom he shares a name (who, by the way, had an extended stint with the Chiefs that made researching this article very very difficult). Therefore, it stands to reason that college rivalries in general and the traditions which run along with them have sort of passed Flowers by. In fact, Flowers has never publicly commented on Mizzou- or any other school- playing “Mr. Brightside” at its sporting events. That, by the way, is a perfect segue to put to bed a narrative that I’ve seen circulating on Twitter for a while now.
Michigan did not start the tradition of playing “Mr. Brightside” at its football games. Michigan was not the first to do it, nor second, nor third. Schools have played this song basically since it came out, and Michigan was way late to the trend. Michigan started playing “Mr. Brightside” at its football games in October 2016. My Twitter searching found that Mizzou has been playing “Mr. Brightside” at basketball games as early as 2007. Mizzou borrowed its anti-KU adlibs from Kansas State, whose students chanted the song for even longer. Michigan does not own “Mr. Brightside.” Get out of my face with that.
In any case, Brandon Flowers has never publicly commented on the use of his most famous song as a tradition for any school, obviously including Mizzou, which doesn’t confirm whether or not he knows it happens, but it certainly points in the direction of he doesn’t. Flowers also doesn’t seem too particularly concerned with sports in the first place, so it’s possible that Flowers just doesn’t care all that much. In any case, this proud Mizzou tradition has grown and developed entirely independently of the band The Killers, and as such, the knowledge or lack-thereof of the tradition frankly has no sway in whether or not the song should continue to be used as an anti-Kansas anthem by Missouri faithful.
Play “Mr. Brightside” loud, and play it often this week, Tigers. It’s time to beat KU.