Spirit

Album: Rebel Diamonds (2023)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is an euphoric and trancey song where Brandon Flowers reflects on life, dreams and faith. It's the final track on Rebel Diamonds, a 20-song best-of featuring material from throughout their catalog. "Spirit" is one of three cuts not already included on an album.
  • Flowers is battered by life but still clutching on to hope, sipping on the echoes of a long-lost flame. In the first verse, he questions if love can be a lifeline and if pain can be tamed. He has big dreams, bathed in light.
  • And where does the spirit go? Is it someplace holy?
    Is it holy and free?
    I don't know if it's true, but I think that I want it
    I want it to be


    The chorus unpacks the core of faith. Flowers can't guarantee a divine rescue from suffering, but he's throwing all his chips on that hopeful possibility. The Morman frontman nods to 2 Corinthians 3:17: ("Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom"). He wonders if the Holy Spirit truly brings freedom. Flowers craves that truth, even if it's just a yearning.
  • In the second verse, Flowers comes clean about wrestling with his spiritual beliefs, chalking it up to youth and getting tangled in life's messy map. He's a construction site, attempting to bridge the gap with a thread of faith.

    The final pre-chorus sees Flowers engulfed in the Holy Spirit's relentless flames, a blazing intensity synced with the majestic beat of the track. God's image flashes across the long night, dreams refusing to be dimmed - a live wire sparking with that lasting fire.
  • Flowers teamed up with his longtime collaborator Stuart Price to write the anthemic track. Price, who co-produced The Killers' entire Day & Age album and Flowers' solo record Flamingo, joined forces with Pressure Machine co-producer Shawn Everett to helm "Spirit."
  • The Killers played "Spirit" live for the first time on November 30, 2023, during their show at Tokio Marine Hall, São Paulo, Brazil.

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