The heavily promoted “When We Were Young” actually hit #1 on Billboard’s alternative chart, but “Mr. Brightside” climbed to #10 on the Hot 100, which is an impressive feat these days for a rock song.

Here are a couple of interesting facts from the song’s wiki page:

The song was named “Song of the Decade” by UK radio stations Absolute Radio and XFM, and in April 2010 Last.fm revealed that it was the most listened to track since the launch of the online music service, with over 7.66 million plays scrobbled

Not only do the Killers own the most-played song on Last.fm, but probably have the lyric of the ’00s as well, in another song (“All These Things I’ve Done”) — I’ve got soul / but I’m not a soldier.

Per the Songfacts page:

Killers guitarist Dave Keuning wrote this about lead signer Brandon Flowers’ ex-girlfriend who cheated on him. Flowers recalled to Q magazine March 2009 how he discovered her with another man at the Crown and Anchor pub in his hometown of Las Vegas: “I was asleep and I knew something was wrong. I have these instincts. I went to the Crown and Anchor and my girlfriend was there with another guy.” Flowers added that the song was “born” at the Crown and Anchor.

More Quintessential Songs of the ’00s.