What does Somebody Told Me mean?

The Killers: Somebody Told Me Meaning

Album cover for Somebody Told Me album cover

Song Released: 2004


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Somebody Told Me Lyrics

Breaking my back just to know your name
Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game
I'm breaking my back just to know your name
But heaven ain't close in a place like this
Anything goes but don't blink you might miss
Cause heaven ain't...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Dec 8th 2006 !⃝

    The speaker in the song is hitting on a girl in a club. That's it. Let's Look at the lyrics:

    "Breaking my back just to know your name
    Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game"
    He's been talking to the girl for what seems like 17 songs (it is a dance club) and she still won't even tell him her name (Believe me, I have BEEN there).

    "But heaven ain't close in a place like this
    Anything goes but don't blink you might miss "

    might mean that "heaven" , meaning his ultimate goal of sleeping with this girl, is not going to be achieved in a noisy dance club which is why he is trying to get to know her better and establish a repoire, so he can get her somewhere else, or perhaps he's just trying to get her number. "Anything goes but don't blink..." means that he's got to throw everthing he's got in his arsenal at her, she's sharp he has to keep on his toes to keep her from getting away.

    "Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight
    Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight "

    "bring it back down" is sort of slang for "reel it in" or "close the deal"

    "Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my..." She's confronted him with the 'ol "somebody told me you we a huge player..." line. This happens. you try and talk to a girl and suddenly some mysterious person as told her all sorts of bad stuff about you. Normally he can play it off but she's reall persistant with it and won't give him an inch.

    "Well Sombodey told me that you had a boyfriend.." The "WELL" here his very important. It's sets the tone of the line as sarcastic. HE's responed to the aformentioned "player" accusation by saying some ridiculous rumor he suposedly heard about her. This is a common trick to hitting on girls, turn something they say about you around on them to make it seem silly. It's like if someone says "I met Michael Jordan" you say "Oh yeah, well my brother's cousin's sister's boyfriend once had a milkshake with Shaquille O'Neill"

    "It's not confidential"- adding to the joke 'everybody knows about it'
    I've got potential- can either mean he's starting to break the ice and get somewhere, or he's trying ot convince her to give him a chance.

    "Pace yourself from me
    I said maybe baby please "she's lightened up now but he's turned it around now telling HER to take it easy
    "But I just don't know now "
    When all I wanna do is try He's saying to her that he doesn't know if he wants her now that she's drug up all these rumors about him...but what he's actually thinking that all he wants to do is try and "bring it on back"

    "A rushin', a rushin' around " basically just saying how he's going around in circles with this conversation."


    Ok so maybe a little off there towards the end. but I think I'm MUCH closer that the "gay, crossdresser, butch-looking girlfriend" theories, which are a little too literal interperatations.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 25th 2014 !⃝

    I was researching this song and I found that Brandon wrote it about a girlfriend of his who cheated on him with another girl.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 11th 2006 !⃝

    uh. you guys are seriously overreading.

    "somebody told me that you had a boyfriend
    that looks like a girlfriend
    that I had in feb..." etc.
    "it's not confidential
    that I've got potential..."

    what he means is that the girl whom he's talking about has a boyfriend who isn't much of a man, and that he'd do a better job, hence the potential thing.

    he's just dissing her current boyfriend, toots.

    xtine.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 29th 2021 !⃝

    Somebody told me you had a boyfriend, that looked like a girlfriend, that I had in February of last year...
    Quite simple to me
    She's dating a guy
    Who USED TO BE a girl February of last year
    Or at least
    Appeared to be. Did the writer of the song know "her" secret? Who knows B
    But the song is about
    Chicks with D!¢|< $
    Chilly enough for you homie?

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  5. anonymous
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    Jun 20th 2020 !⃝

    The song is a self comedic clownery (it's not confidential i've got potential) when a guy gets rejected by a girl in a club. He jabs the girl that ‘well your boyfriend is not manly as I am so get ready on the real deal!’ like it's supposedly going to happen. The ‘it's not confidential i've got potential’ is just a comedic buffoonery about claims of what you can actually achieve in a club with a random girl you've just met that's not into you. Alot of the people were thrown off by the very negative aspect of that song (who looks like a girlfriend) and tried to paint down that this is a peacefully loving gay song or that ‘oh he just dated a bisexual woman but the killers described what the song was about. They said themselves that this song is a joke reference about difficulties in trying to meet a girl in a club from the guys perspective

  6. anonymous
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    Aug 11th 2018 !⃝

    He's a gay man, pets.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
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    Jul 17th 2017 !⃝

    Verrattain vitunmoinen selitys asiasta joka tulee kuitenkin kai jo toisessa viestissä parhaiten tulkituksi.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 21st 2014 !⃝

    I got this from Rolling Stones.
    Wanting to appeal to both sexes, the Killers wrote the androgynous lyric "You had a boyfriend/Who looked like a girlfriend." "This is the story of trying to meet someone in a club," Brandon Flowers said about the debut single from the Las Vegas band's first album, Hot Fuss. For the Killers' follow-up full-length, Sam's Town, Flowers consciously shifted to creating more compelling material. "There are people who want us to write 'Somebody Told Me' again, and we just don't want that," the band's frontman told Rolling Stone. "There's always a place for fun songs, but then there are the songs that give people chills. I like those more."

    Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/song-stories/somebody-told-me-the-killers#ixzz389QCkrBi
    Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 12th 2014 !⃝

    Being that The Killers are Mormon, I interpret the song as being about a guy who is deperately searching for a girl who was seen dating a guy (a girlfriend refers to the more feminate indiviual in a gay couple) who he dated last Feb. He is hoping that if she could do something to make that guy attracted to women maybe she could do the same for him. - I have potential, and pace yourself for me, and all I want to do is try, really puts it in persective....

  10. anonymous
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    Jul 26th 2013 !⃝

    Brandon had said in an interview it was about an ex girlfriend who cheated on him before he became famous.Geez you guys read way too hard into lyrics.

  11. anonymous
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    Mar 25th 2013 !⃝

    Well since he murdered Jenny in his 3 part murder trilogy, I don't think she's lived to have other relationships. And he was never in a relationship with Jenny because she didn't share his feelings.

  12. river12
    click a star to vote
    Aug 1st 2012 !⃝

    My uncle went to high school with Brandon and From what he says Brandon was Bisexual and very shy during classes but during lunch he would hang out with some loud punkers. He had weird looking girlfriends and boyfriends. The guys he dated and hang out with looked like girls. They would wear make-up and had long black hair and looked very fem. He dated this guy and what happen was that the guy he was dating ended up dating his ex or a girl he liked. My Uncle was in water polo and he also says he dated a guy named Andrew. He only knows about those two since they would talk during math.

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 29th 2012 !⃝

    You have got to be a complete idiot not to realize what this song means.

    "Well somebody told me
    You had a boyfriend
    Who looked like a girlfriend
    That I had in February of last year
    It's not confidential
    I've got potential"

    Basically the girl he is hitting on is dating his ex girlfriend! Hence the "Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year"

    But at the same time it might not be true "It's not confidential," There for he has "potential" to get her.


    She's a lesbian, duh.

  14. anonymous
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    May 5th 2012 !⃝

    anyone who has been to bangkok knows heaven ain't close in a place like that. The strip clubs there have a huge mix of "boy girls". many of them are surprisingly attractive (until you see the adam's apple). I think the singer is just suggesting that regardless if she is a "he or a she" she looks like a girlfriend that he had.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  15. anonymous
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    May 4th 2012 !⃝

    I do see the whole nightclub way but the video is just them on a beach singing so...

  16. Keelie.Whitford
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    Apr 4th 2012 !⃝

    To me it seems like he's just saying that hes found this girl he likes, but he recognizes her.

    He goes to talk to her and he's like hey.. arent you that one chick? Look somebody told me that I dated.. your boyfriend- which is odd because last year in february.. he.. was my girlfriend- meaning that I very likely dated a man..

    Its not.. ANYTHING BIG- but I do have potential, nothing wrong with that I guess- but I was really wondering.

    Yeah.. thats what it sounds like to me.

  17. anonymous
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    Mar 28th 2012 !⃝

    The guy had sex with a guy who looks like a girl

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  18. anonymous
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    Feb 16th 2012 !⃝

    I think the girl he went out with was bi. Hence explaining the him going out with Jenny or whoever. now he is hitting on a girl at the club and someone told him that his ex is dating. Now his head is spinning because he does not know if this girl is toying with him or it is just a rumor

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