“In Another Life” by The Killers

Pressure Machine is an album which is fundamentally based on Brandon Flowers’ small-town roots. However, some of the songs are actually reflections, i.e. contrasting the present of this reality with the past, i.e. showing the aftereffects of remaining in such an environment. And such is the case with “In Another Life”.

This song speaks to a concept found elsewhere on the album, one of looking bad and analyzing whether the dreams of small-town youth have indeed come to pass in adulthood. And in the case of this particular narrator, how he feels in that regard is never explicitly stated. However, the overall implication is that he is discontent.

This idea is most pointedly driven home via the introduction, which actually centers on America’s current opioid epidemic, a crisis which is known to have hit small-town communities especially hard. 

And what the intro is saying is that back in the narrator’s youth, he was content with getting high by simply “drinking a beer”. But now with so many opioids floating around, there has been a vast increase in more serious drug usage. 

And there is a particular reason such individuals are prone to drug abuse in the first place, which is a desire “to escape something”.  And we know after studying other songs on “Pressure Machine” that “something” would be akin to the monotony and lack of mobility which characterizes smaller town existence.

Thus by the time we get to the first verse, the vocalist is addressing his peers. And what he is asking is did their lives actually materialize as idealized in youth? This is a question he also poses more specifically to his own wife in the second verse. 

And apparently the reason he is compelled to do so is because, as illustrated in the chorus, the singer himself is quite unhappy with how his life has played out. Or as insinuated by the second chorus he fell right into the small-town trap, if you will, of monotony and lack of mobility.

Song’s Title (“In Another Life”)

And that brings us to the title, i.e. his dreams now being reduced to fantasies of living “another life”. 

Or as presented in the outro, what if instead of going along with the flow he tried something different?  But alas, it’s not like he can go back in time and change the past. 

So it is also this feeling of major disappointment upon which the song concludes.

Facts about “In Another Life”

Perhaps relatedly to note is that Mark Stoermer, i.e. the bassist for The Killers, dropped an album which itself is entitled “Another Life” back in 2011.

This is the eighth track on the playlist of Pressure Machine, The Killer’s fifth LP. It was produced by the musicians responsible for serving that role throughout the entire album, Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado. 

Rado also acted as one of the co-writers of the song, working with Brandon Flowers to get that goal accomplished.

This track was put out by Island Records on the date of 13 August 2021, i.e. the same day in which the aforenoted Pressure Machine was released.

Although the aforementioned Mark Stoermer is officially listed as a member of The Killers, he apparently did not participate on Pressure Machine.  Instead, besides frontman Brandon Flowers the other members who actually contributed to the album are guitarist Dave Keuning and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr.

Was this a Single from The Killers’ “Pressure Machine”?

No, it wasn’t. There actually wasn’t any official single released to support the album as of its official release date.