What do you think Somebody Told Me means?

The Killers: Somebody Told Me Meaning

Album cover for Somebody Told Me album cover

Song Released: 2004


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. anonymous
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    Oct 11th 2008 !⃝

    Maybe the "somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend..." part means that the girl he broke up w/ was so desperate and she dated some guy who wasn't that great and kinda girly just so she could get back at him.

  2. anonymous
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    Jun 9th 2008 !⃝

    I agree with the lesbian interpretation.

  3. anonymous
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    May 10th 2008 !⃝

    My interpretation of the song is that he once went out with a girl, who he has now split up with.

    He has now found out that the ex-girlfriend is going out with a new bloke and to save him feeling jealous somebody told him that the girl's new boyfriend is feminine and weak etc. And looks like a girlfriend he once had.

    He is now saying that he is better than this new bloke and can do so much better himself. But even with this he still gets upset and lets it ruin he's night out.

  4. anonymous
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    Feb 20th 2008 !⃝

    Well, here goes.

    If you're familiar with the terms "uke"(receiving male) and "seme"(dominant male), then it's easy to understand.
    The narrator had a boyfriend who was the "uke" one in the relationship, a.k.a. "girlfriend".
    The guy the narrator likes was involved with the "girlfriend" too, but in their case the "girlfriend" was a "seme".
    Now the narrator gives an invitation to the guy he likes, kind of suggesting that he can give pleasure to any "uke"(I've got potential).

    Not sure if you understood anything :-s

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  5. ShortMama234
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    Feb 5th 2008 !⃝

    I think that this song is about jealousy. So many might interpret it as a confusion of sexuality, but I think that it's much more metaphorical than that.

    When the singer says 'somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year,' I think that he is speaking metaphorically about the relationship, not necessarily the physical appearance of the person he's talking about.

    Maybe what he is trying to tell this person, whom he might have dated in the past ... That besides him, she is dating the same person over and over again. Maybe ... maybe not.

  6. freetibet
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    Dec 13th 2007 !⃝

    You have to remember how these guys write lyrics. They write about 1/3 of what they mean (think Bush, for example). And don't forget the hint in Mr. Brightside: "it's all in my head, but..."

    Also the context of Somebody Told Me is his struggle with the pain of loneliness, rejection & jealousy in the wake of a breakup with someone who's "gotten back out there" faster than he has.

    So "looks like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year" is a two-tiered, bitter, "sour grapes" dig at his ex's new boyfriend. The first dig is that she looks like a girl. The second is a weak, desperate attempt to paint him as used goods ("that I had last year")-- weak, but it's the best a straight guy can do to a straight ex-girlfriend. (were the roles reversed, it could be a little stronger)

    The Killers are not the kind of lyricists that will spell this out for you. That's what makes them a great band on a level beyond mass appeal (which they also have for very good reasons).

    Peace!

  7. anonymous
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    Dec 11th 2007 !⃝

    Sup fags.

    No the song isn't about stupid gays or being a closet bone-smoker.

    Yes he is just dissing his ex for going out with a limp wristed guy who looks like a little bitch.

    Christ you emos need to stop reading too much into things...but then again you stupid fucks are probably gay anyway so we should just lower our expectations right there.

  8. anonymous
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    Nov 17th 2007 !⃝

    Wtf? gah, he's married with a kid! he's not gay! gah, I think that his ex has a new boyfriend who looks girly. She dumped him, so therefore he's paranoid, and a friend tells him that she's with some guy who looks like a girl he use to date back in february. That's bothering him--"let a rumor ruin my moonlight" because he doesn't know if it's a rumor or not. He misses her :3 a friend of him just told him that.

  9. anonymous
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    Oct 23rd 2007 !⃝

    Well, I Think It's about a Guy in a club/bar and he found this
    girl that he likes but heard that she has a Metrosexual boyfriend,almost making fun of him from the comment about his girlfriend that he had in February.but wanted to make sure that it was true"somebody told me"also maybe being a pick-up line.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  10. anonymous
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    Sep 2nd 2007 !⃝

    I think the people who hit on the transsexual theory are correct in this song.

    Its rather complicated, but easy when you are in the middle of this situation, to understand.

    I think the song is about a man who dated a woman last year, who has since broken up with him. Now she has transitioned to a man and he has heard rumours about it.

    So he goes along to a gay nightclub to check it out.

    Meanwhile he walks in and sees this incredibly hot girl (whom he may or may not know) who is dancing with his now transitioned (and passing) ex girlfriend. He is instantly in love with her, and is panicking about his own masculinity and questioning it as he tries to grab her attention to pinch her off his ex GF. The panic in this song is OBVIOUS.

    He is also threatening to out the ex girlfriend of his for really being born a woman. ("its not confidential") He is extremely angry that a really hot girl has picked someone like this female-to-male person, over him (I suspect he knows the girl from before and maybe he has liked her in the past) "Ive got potential" He is also still confused from being left by his ex and what is now happening right in front of him (the panic in the pace and the wording in the song makes me think this).

    The reason why all these lyrics make perfect sense to me in this song is because I am a female to male transsexual and my ex husband and my girlfriend were all involved in this same scenario, he wanted to pinch her off me, and threatened to out me to people at the same time. Guess you gotta experience it to understand it..

    Maybe some people do read a little too much into songs but this is to me a very plausible explanation for this songs lyrics.

  11. anonymous
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    Jul 16th 2007 !⃝

    He's making fun of emos. Hes said it many times before. He hates emos and the song is bashing emos. You idiots talking about the gay and transsexual references are reading too deep into the song. Just like all songs by good bands, people read way to deep into them but if you ask the writer they will tell you they were fucked up and there really isn't a defined meaning. They make cool, catchy, entertaining songs to make millions.

  12. anonymous
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    May 1st 2007 !⃝

    I believe it is that first it was his girlfriend then the girl he sees and likes is a lesbian and so is his ex. That simple.
    =]

    xo
    Amberlee.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  13. anonymous
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    Apr 28th 2007 !⃝

    I agree with xtine

    ORR

    Maybe the girl had a sex change?

    ORR

    Maybe its as simple as it sounds.
    Your ex looks like mine. Shame ones a guy and ones a girl.

    =]

    xx

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  14. anonymous
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    Apr 21st 2007 !⃝

    Oh. My. Goodness. Y'all are so dumb! It's obviously about a guy who has a near-death experience ("heaven ain't close in a place like this"), and when he wakes up, he realizes that he doesn't remember anything. So he meets this girl that looks familiar, but he couldn't remember her name, and she keeps avoiding telling him her name ("Breaking my back just to know your name").

    THEN it gets weird: he finds out from one of his friends that the girl was dating someone who looked like his ex-girlfriend. He puts two and two together, and figures out that his ex-girlfriend had been abducted by aliens (that's all the references to heaven and the moon and whatnot), who performed a sex-change operation on her! So now she's a he, and is dating the Mystery Girl.

    With me so far? It gets stranger. The main guy had been a driver for NASCAR ("let's roll on to something new," and "a rushin', a rushin' around"), and the reason for his near-death experience was that he got into a car-crash and BROKE HIS BACK (sounding familiar?!), and that was in February, and therefore the last time he remembers being with his (now ex-) girlfriend. But the real reason he crashed was because of alien intervention, so they could kidnap his girlfriend and do sex-change experiments on her, so she could hook up with Mystery Girl, and they could start a master race of people, who could take over the world for the aliens.

    Now, I may be reading too much into this, but I'm pretty darn sure that's what the song was about.

  15. anonymous
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    Mar 13th 2007 !⃝

    In my opinion the real meaning of the song is that rumors are the most stupid thing in the world . This is about the absurdity of rumors.

    That rumor can't be real . It is sure sarcastic . If it wasn't sarcastic he would say something like your boyfriend looks like my ex girlfriend" but he specifies exactly when , it says "that I had in FEBRUARY of LAST YEAR" How could any body tell you a rumor like that :" hey you know what?" the woman you like had a boyfriend who looks like the girlfriend that you had in February of LAST YEAR" . (And consider that being February the second month of the year , this person should have a good memory because he had this girl between 11 and 23 months ago, depending on which month the rumor was spread ). This is sure an example of an absurd absurd absurd rumor. Like "your mother had an horse who peed on my chrysanthemums in Kazakhstan".
    The singer maybe says it to discredit the boyfriend of the girl he likes or to express some rage, but anyway it's really really ironical.

    so people , " beware of RUMORS". (Sorry for my mistakes, I'm Italian, but this could be a good interpretation).

    VVH




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