The Daily Epic Earworm For November 30, 2025
Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: The Killers — “Mr. Brightside”
Las Vegas rockers the Killers wrote and recorded the Grammy-nominated “Mr. Brightside” after frontman Brandon Flowers caught his girlfriend cheating on him in a Las Vegas bar. The problem, however, was that no one wanted to sign the band. The Killers were turned down by label after label in the United States for more than a year. The band did not catch a break until the UK indie label Lizard King finally signed them in 2003. The label released the song as a single and pressed 500 CDs of the song.
Initially, the song went nowhere, though it did garner some radio play in the UK. Lizard King released a second single by the band entitled “Somebody Told Me,” which landed in the Top 40. That would prove to be the band’s big break. Island Records came calling and signed the Killers to a record deal in the U.S., with Lizard King retaining rights in the UK. Island re-released a cleaner version of “Mr. Brightside,” and the song took off. It peaked at Number Ten on the U.S. and UK charts.
Killing It in the UK
The band that no one wanted in the U.S. was now becoming a huge success. “Mr. Brightside” achieved diamond status in America, and the debut album it was added to, Hot Fuss, was certified sextuple-platinum. However, the success the Killers achieved in the U.S. was nothing compared to what they would achieve overseas.
“Mr. Brightside” may have peaked at Number Ten on the UK charts, but its popularity has not waned. The epic earworm has spent over 480 weeks on the charts there and is one of the most-streamed and most-downloaded songs on multiple sites. The album has 11 platinum certifications by the British Phonographic Industry. The song’s popularity soared in Australia as well, where it has 25 platinum certifications. Not bad for a song that Flowers admits he was unable to come up with a second verse for. All these years later, he has to be thinking, “It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?”
