My song of the day is “Sam’s Town” by The Killers. Its title presumably comes from the Las Vegas Casino of the same name, nothing fancy but a staple of the gambling capital of the United States.
It’s the kind of a place where gamblers, both dilettante and desperado, man slot machines next to chain-smokers and grandmothers working two machines simultaneously like a job. It makes sense, given the band was formed in 2001 in Vegas.
Sam’s Town is also the name of the band’s 2006 sophomore album album. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to its release, two years after the band’s 2004 debut “Hot Fuss,” because that album basically conquered the world.
Hot Fuss yielded more hits than a pinata yields candy, earworms like “Mr. Brightside,” the ironically melancholic”Smile Like You Mean It” and the mysterious, gender-bending “Somebody Told Me.”
I don’t mean to compare the quartet in sound to The Cars, though I’d give good money to hear Brandon Flowers belt out “Just What I Needed” with his trademark power warble.
But the two-year period in which Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town came out was kind of like in 1978 when the Cars–another American band, formed in Boston–came out with their eponymous debut album followed three years later by a third album, “Shake It Up.” You couldn’t turn on the radio with out tuning in and shouting out songs like “Just What I Needed,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “Since You’re Gone” and “Good Times Roll.”
Back to the Killers and their second album, Sam’s Town, which wooed listeners with epic alt rock and balladry in songs like “When You Were Young.” The record was a hit and established that the quartet was no flash in the pan but a rock band that could fill stadiums and royal concert halls and could go on to craft a miles-deep catalogue.
Upon purchase of the Sam’s Town album, I was entranced–more like kidnapped–by the title track “Sam’s Town” on account of its careening momentum. I can only describe it at reckless and rip-roaring. It speeds fans down a path that’s distinctly American, like driving along Route 66 or a powering a steamboat along the Mississippi River.
Flowers himself describes this phenomenon, singing, “I’ve got this energy underneath my feet like something under ground’s gonna come up and carry me.” This song recreates that energy, speeding listeners down a path that’s part Vegas strip, part Route 66 and part Mississippi River rapids.
Flowers has a gift for metaphor and imagery and does himself proud in “Sam’s Town” with lyrics that, for this American girl, strike close to the bone:
“I still remember Grandma Dixie’s wake/I’d never really known anybody to die before/Red, white and blue on a birthday cake/My brother was born on the Fourth of July and that’s all. . .”
—Sarah Torribio
Listen to more songs of the day curated by Sarah Torribio HERE
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