Songfacts®:

• Nate Ruess told Rolling Stone the story behind this song. "One day we were just in the studio and Jeff (Bhasker, producer) started playing this old funky keyboard that just made honking noises; it played old records back," he recalled. "It's kind of like a Mellotron. I don't even know what the name of the keyboard was. But I just remembered hearing that and freaking out."
  
  "I ran straight into the studio and fortunately there was a microphone in that room, and the engineers just rolled the tape while I made up a lot of that, 'I wish that I was on the brightside, my friends and I,'" Ruess continued. "I made all that stuff up on the spot as Jeff was playing and we were both moved by the sound of it."
• Ruess explained the song's meaning: "I think I wrote this as if I was singing to someone and I was dead," he said. "Completely unintentionally, it kind of harkens back to the Beck song when I sang, 'I think I'm going to shine in the afterlife,' and I feel like that is my version of shining in the afterlife."
• Ruess insisted to Spin the song title is not a Killers reference. "I didn't think about it until after the fact," he said. "It's a great f--kin' song, I just hope Brandon [Flowers] doesn't come after me for publishing."
• Nate Ruess' girlfriend, fashion designer Charlotte Ronson, (Mark Ronson's younger sister) contributes backing vocals to the track.