All These Things That I've Done

"All These Things That I've Done" is a song by American rock band The Killers. The song was released as the third single from the band's debut studio album Hot Fuss (2004). It was written by frontman Brandon Flowers and features gospel choir The Sweet Inspirations. It was released as the third single in 2004 in the United Kingdom and as the fourth single in the United States, peaking at number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 18 on the UK Singles Chart. The song features the central lyric of "You gotta help me out",[1] and an extended refrain of "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier". The song is about television host Matt Pinfield, who was working with the U.S. Army as part of a program that mentored wounded and/or PTSD-stricken musician soldiers returning from Iraq.

"You Gotta Help Me Out" redirects here. For other uses of "Help Me Out", see Help Me Out (disambiguation).
"All These Things That I've Done"
Single by The Killers
from the album Hot Fuss
ReleasedAugust 30, 2004
Recorded2003
StudioThe Hearse, Berkeley, California
GenreAlternative rock
Length
  • 5:01 (album version)
  • 3:53 (radio/single edit)
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
  • The Killers
  • Jeff Saltzman
The Killers singles chronology
"Somebody Told Me"
(2004)		 "All These Things That I've Done"
(2004)		 "Smile Like You Mean It"
(2005)
Audio sample
  • file
  • help

Background

The song is about television host Matt Pinfield.[2] Before The Killers were famous, Pinfield, who was a vice president of A&R at Columbia Records at the time, tried to sign the band. He was also working with the U.S. Army as part of a program that mentored wounded and/or PTSD-stricken musician soldiers returning from Iraq. After visiting veteran soldiers in Colorado City, he went to Las Vegas, where he quickly bonded with The Killers.[2] Pinfield watched the band rehearse at drummer Ronnie Vannucci's garage and took them out to dinner. He asked if anybody wanted to give him a ride back to his hotel and Brandon Flowers offered to drive Pinfield. They wound up hitting the bar at the Gold Coast Hotel on a Tuesday night, just "talking about life", Pinfield said:

I started to tell him the story about mentoring soldiers, and I was getting ready to go through a divorce. I was going through a bit of a rough time. So, he went home that night, and their old manager, Braden Merrick, calls me on the phone, and goes, 'Hey Matt, Brandon wrote a song about you. He went home last night and wrote this song.' It was 'All These Things That I've Done,' and the line 'I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier' is about the mentoring thing.[2]

In 2016, Pinfield titled his memoir "All These Things That I've Done: My Insane, Improbable Rock Life".[2] On January 19, 2019, the band gave Pinfield a shoutout while introducing the song at the iHeartRadio ALTer Ego 2019 festival at The Forum in Inglewood, California, where Pinfield was in attendance in a wheelchair still recovering from being hit by a car a month before.[2]

Critical reception

The song was acclaimed by critics upon release. Bill Lamb of About.com gave the song 4 out of 5 stars, noting its strength as a pop-rock anthem.[3] Jemma Volp-Fletcher gave the single a perfect score of 10 out of 10, calling it "staggering", while also complimenting frontman Flowers' songwriting skills.[4] musicOMH's Sara McDonnell was also impressed, saying that it had "classic song' written all over it".[5]

In 2009, The Daily Telegraph listed it among the "100 Greatest Songs of All Time".[6]

In December 2005, the song was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 48th Grammy Awards,[7] but lost to "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" by U2.[8]

Performances and covers

The band performed the song at Live 8, a charity campaign series of concerts held in July 2005.[9][10] In 2009, The Killers, Coldplay, Bono (U2), and Gary Barlow (Take That) performed the track together to support a special War Child concert following the BRIT Awards.[11]

Fellow Las Vegas band Panic! At the Disco members Brendon Urie and Ryan Ross slow danced to the song according to the December 2006 issue of Kerrang!.[12]

A popular song among alternative rock bands, "All These Things That I've Done" has been covered live by numerous artists including U2,[13] Coldplay, Imagine Dragons,[14] Walk the Moon,[15] Kris Allen,[16] and Robbie Williams.[17]

Music videos

The song has two music videos, the earlier of which was filmed in July 2004. It features The Killers singing while walking down Brick Lane, in London accompanied by a crowd. The video also featured shots of the audience who attended The Killers concert at the London Astoria, on July 8, 2004.

The later version, directed by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn, was filmed in May 2005 in Las Vegas and features a surreal, dream-like sequence, where The Killers, dressed as cowboys, are attacked by scantily clad female warriors armed with boomerangs.[18] The story in the video is told out of order, but can be put in its order by the numbers displayed in the video. The band later made use of a similar cowboy motif during promotion of their second album, Sam's Town, and its accompanying tour and music videos during 2006 and 2007.

Track listings

UK 7"

  1. "All These Things That I've Done" (Flowers)
  2. "Andy, You're a Star" (Zane Lowe Radio 1 session) (Flowers)

UK CD

  1. "All These Things That I've Done" – 5:04
  2. "All These Things That I've Done" (radio edit) – 3:23
  3. "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself?" (Zane Lowe Radio 1 session) (Morrissey and Alain Whyte) – 3:45
  4. "All These Things That I've Done" (video)

European CD

  1. "All These Things That I've Done" (radio edit)
  2. "All These Things That I've Done"

Australian and European maxi CD

  1. "All These Things That I've Done" (radio edit)
  2. "All These Things That I've Done"
  3. "Mr. Brightside" (The Lindbergh Palace club remix) (Flowers and Keuning)
  4. "All These Things That I've Done" (video)

Charts and certifications

Accolades
Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
XFM United Kingdom 100 Greatest Songs of the Decade[33] 2009
22
Absolute Radio 100 Best Songs of the Decade[34] 2009
9
NME 100 Greatest Tracks of the Decade[35] 2009
95
150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years[36] 2011
56
The Daily Telegraph 100 Greatest Songs of All Time[37][38] 2009
65
2015
75
Pretty Much Amazing United States Favorite Songs of the Last Ten Years[39] 2010
14

Awards
Year Ceremony Award Result
2006 Grammy Awards Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Nominated
2020 Guild of Music Supervisors Awards Best Song Written and/or Recorded for Television[40] Pending

In other media

Comedian and musician Bill Bailey frequently pokes fun at the song's refrain during his shows, providing his own version: "I've got ham, but I'm not a hamster". According to Bailey himself, the band was aware of the parody, finding it quite amusing.[41]

The song has been featured in commercials, including an ad for Nike.[42]

The song was also played in the final scene of the 2005 Pierce Brosnan/Greg Kinnear dark comedy The Matador.

The song was lip-synced by Justin Timberlake in a scene from Richard Kelly's 2006 film Southland Tales.

The song has appeared in trailers for the 2019 Illumination film The Secret Life of Pets 2

The song was used at the opening of “Pilot” (S1E1, 2008) to set up the suicide storyline of Ron Livingston's character in the ABC series “A Million Little Things.”

The song was used in the first episode of the PBS documentary series Carrier, as USS Nimitz embarks upon a six-month WESTPAC deployment.

The song was used at the opening of "Pilot" (S1E1, 2006) to background Jake Green's travel to Jericho, KS in the CBS series "Jericho"

References
  1. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (October 5, 2017). "'Such a sad event': why musicians hate the Tory party conference". The Guardian. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
  2. Parker, Lyndsey (January 22, 2019). "Soldiering on: MTV VJ Matt Pinfield opens up about near-fatal accident, song the Killers wrote for him". Yahoo!.
  3. "All These Things That I've Done – The Killers". Top40.about.com. 2012-04-10. Archived from the original on 2012-08-13. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  4. "The Killers – All these things that I've done – Single Review". Contactmusic.com. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  5. "The Killers – All These Things That I've Done | track reviews". musicOMH.com. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  6. McCormick, Neil (March 12, 2009). "100 Greatest Songs of All Time: 75 – 51". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  7. "48th annual Grammy nominations list — part 1". Variety. 2005-12-08. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  8. "CNN.com – List of Grammy winners – Feb 9, 2006". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  9. Forrest, Adam. "Did Live 8 Work? 10 Years On, The Debt Burden Returns". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  10. NME (2006-01-18). "The Killers: Live8 performance will be hard to beat". NME. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  11. "U2's Bono Joins Coldplay and The Killers For War Child Gig In The Capital". Uncut.co.uk. 2014-08-14. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  12. "Kerrang December 9 2006 Issue". 9 December 2006. Archived from the original on 2016-10-12. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  13. Matthias Muehlbradt, Andre Axver. "U2 All These Things That I've Done – U2 on tour". U2gigs.com.
  14. Imagine Dragons- All These Things That I've Done.3GP. YouTube. 6 April 2011.
  15. "WATCH: Walk The Moon Covered The Killers Live". Radio 104.5. Archived from the original on 2015-09-25. Retrieved 2015-09-11.
  16. "All These Things That I've Done"- Kris Allen 7/10/09. YouTube. 11 July 2009.
  17. Robbie does a little cover of The Killers. YouTube. 3 September 2006.
  18. Montgomery, James. "Killers Don't Understand Their Anton Corbijn-Directed Clip". MTV News. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  19. "Australian-charts.com – The Killers – All These Things That I've Done". ARIA Top 50 Singles.
  20. "The Killers Chart History (Canadian Digital Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  21. "RR Canada Rock Top 30" (PDF). p. 67. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  22. "The Irish Charts – Search Results – The Killers". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  23. "Dutchcharts.nl – The Killers – All These Things That I've Done" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  24. "Charts.nz – The Killers – All These Things That I've Done". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  25. "Polish Singles Chart". Archived from the original on 2012-02-27. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
  26. "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  27. "Swedishcharts.com – The Killers – All These Things That I've Done". Singles Top 100. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  28. "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  29. "Official Independent Singles Chart Top 50". Official Charts Company. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  30. "The Killers – Chart history". Billboard. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  31. "The Killers – Chart history". Billboard. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  32. "British single certifications – Killers – All These Things That I've Done". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  33. "30 – 21". Xfm. Archived from the original on 2009-12-02. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  34. "Somebody Told Me by The Killers". Song of the Decade. Archived from the original on 2009-11-25. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  35. "100 Tracks of the Decade". Nme.Com. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  36. "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". Nme.Com. Retrieved 2013-10-24.
  37. "100 greatest songs of all time". Telegraph.co.uk. 3 June 2015.
  38. "100 greatest songs of all time". Telegraph.co.uk. 3 June 2015.
  39. Adam Offitzer (2009-12-11). "#14. The Killers – All These Things That I've Done « PMA". Pretty Much Amazing. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  40. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/awards/8547678/guild-of-music-supervisors-awards-nominees-2020
  41. Bill Bailey on the Graham Norton Show, 2012
  42. Andrews, David L.; Carrington, Ben (2013-06-21). A Companion to Sport. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32528-5.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.