Interpreting An American Dream by Brandon Flowers

I confess, until recently I knew little about Brandon Flowers and the Killers other than their pop hits, and that he came out of Nephi, UT as an LDS kid.

But I heard he made a solo album that was an homage to old Western, country and good old fashion singer-songwriter glory. So I listened.

And I was blown away. Instantly. From the early singles, I was in. He’s an incredible song writer, musician and has that unique gift to make you feel like you’re in the song. And when it’s not pop, it’s gritty, folksy, engaging American music.

But I admittedly mostly skipped over the last track, An American Dream, the first time through and even subsequent listens.

Then he appeared on Fallon. And THAT’S the song he plays? With how amazing the other tracks are, I knew I must have missed something. So I went back and listened to An American Dream. And listened again. And I cried, and I listened again. And I felt hope. And the spirit touched me.

The song is a clever, real, relatable and beautiful allegory for life as a modern Christian, in a world where popular pursuits are not so Christian. And, as with all great allegories and parables, it needs context that some may not have. This one happens to fit my early life like a glove and I feel compelled to share what it means to me.

So profoundly it touched me. As a 40-something man growing up in the US southwest in the 80s and 90s, with worldly success, relative wealth and accomplishment, it spoke to all the thoughts I’ve myself considered, and brought me renewed faith and hope that we can all persevere through the worldliness and follow our Savior.

I felt compelled to write this. Even if for no one other than myself. It’s a start-to-finish breakdown of this gorgeous song, set in a dream, from the incredible pen of Brandon Flowers.

An American Dream

“I took the fool’s gold from my nickel pocket

Watched it flake in the morning sun”

Pretty straightforward commentary that all that glitters is not gold. As kids in the 80s and 90s, we still thought fools gold was a cool thing to have/find. So this is very relatable symbolism. Taking it from his “nickel” pocket is just brilliant wordplay.

“When a wave of punishing heat

Kissed the crown of my head

Suddenly I was aware of myself”

I think we’ve all experienced those moments when we reach another level of self-reflection and awareness. A light comes on. We feel the heat of a spotlight on our choices, or our focus, or our actions being on the wrong things.

In this context, after talking about fools gold, the implication is he was aware of his focus, or at least desire to focus on something that’s worldly. Of dubious value. It has the appearance of value, but not true worth.

“I picked up the pay phone and dialed my parents

Only I had forgotten my mother had passed”

First, he uses the pay phone, so he’s in the mind of himself as a child. Great time-setting mechanism.

As we face struggles in our lives while young, especially those of faith, we tend to rely on our parents, their advice, testimony, etc. But at some critical point, our choices have to be our own. His mother has passed. He’s on his own now.

“I heard flapping pages in a creosote bush

I walked towards them

They were full of women”

This is where the lyrics start to get really, really great.

He’s alone in this moment of reflection, fear and uncertainty, and what does he hear/see? Temptation. And he WALKS TOWARD IT. And we all do. Especially when young and on our own for the first time.

If you’ve lived in the southwest, you know the creosote plant, its smell, its flowers. They’re not just pervasive, but they are super drought tolerant and arguably the oldest plant on earth. And they are dense leafed, so they hold garbage on the side of the road easily. So it’s the imagery of his childhood, but also indicative of something strong and stalwart, but that still collects garbage. Satan uses the best things for the worst purposes.

As we learn in the next stanza, he finds a dirty mag. So I get from this that even something ruggedly beautiful can attract or hide something unseemly and ungodly.

“With blurred out crotches

And stars for nipples

And an ad for the Red Man burning my lip”

If you went to Vegas as a kid in the 90s, you know exactly what he finds in the bush. Those blurred/starred dirty newsprint ads/litter on the Vegas streets might have be the first exposure to porn/lust for millions of young kids. So he’s introducing the draw of vice, sin, struggle of 80s/90s.

And he finds it right at the time he sees he’s alone in his choices.

There’s also this great imagery of these things being fake/unsatisfying. The women aren’t fully nude. He speaks of the Redman, a chewing tobacco brand, which burns his lip. Many of you may not know even what that is, but chewing tobacco was a very popular temptation for kids in the 80s/90s (kinda the vape of its day, but more widely accepted).

So he’s set these parameters: In the present of the dream, he is aware of the fools gold in his life and he feels heat from his collection on it. Then the dream shifts to these younger man’s themes, the fools gold of the age: substances, porn, lust.

“That I got from a Guiness World Record Holder

For the longеst fall living

And he walked with a limp”

In the 80s and early 90s we didn’t have the Internet yet. But we had the Guiness Book of World Records. It was like our tik tok. Written vignettes and images of these crazy things: The woman with 3 inch finger nails. Those two huge obese twins on the motorcycle. We LOVED those books.

But it wasn’t just a book about freak show stories. There were feats of strength, stories of Fame and fortune. Many kids wanted to be in that book.

So he recalls that as an obvious worldly representation of pseudo fame. And the guy in his dream holds the record for the longest fall, walks with a limp. Simple and beautiful lyric that all opportunity comes with risk and fame has a price.

“And we sang Gold and silvеr, God and glitter

Lights that flicker on hubcap chrome

On the road to Heaven

It’s Strauss and Stetson

Swimming pools of horsepower

Take me back home”

As we hit the chorus, he is really nailing the symbolism.

Gold and silver, God and glitter. Gold is the real value. Silver may shine, but it’s what Judas sought and got. God is good. Glitter is fake.

Lights flicker on chrome hubcaps, they don’t shine. The light is only temporary. He introduces these images around automobiles, and especially vintage ones. Perfect for the setting and a commentary on excess in the early days of American music fame.

Chrome was/is popular because it can be polished to shine. Steel is the frame of a car, chrome is for show. But the road to heaven is Strauss and Stetson (Levis and cowboy hats): it’s humble, hard work.

Then he says “swimming pools of horsepower”. A very odd line. Both as nouns are about status. But it’s swimming pools OF horsepower. Like, it’s a deep pool of horsepower. Of excess. It also brings water and its depth, consumption into the song. With more to come later.

But water is also the medium for baptism. For being reborn.

He says those things “take me back home”, an obvious allusion to heaven. Why would excess “take me back” home? I think he’s saying that you can be in the pool of excess, but still find your way back. We have to be in the world. And some get rich and/or famous. But there is a path home despite that. And all are subject to its allure. The next stanza tells the rest of that story beautifully and poetically.

“Smoke signals rise from a ‘44 Chevy Fleetline

On the bridge of the Boulder Dam”

It’s very interesting to use smoke signals rising from a car. At first he is leading us to believe it’s a 44 gun. But then it’s a car. Was the car broken down symbolizing the end of the road?

The 44 Chevy Fleetline was never released to the public because of WW2. It symbolizes something we were never meant to have, something that’s only mythical. But it’s another piece of imagery of classic cars, which makes sense for the character that enters the dream next (Elvis was an absolute freak about car collecting).

Regardless how you interpret it, the point is he reached the end of one part of life, and realized it wasn’t real yet. And what he thought he knew was maybe mythical. And the smoke signal seems to be telling him he needs to jump. Transition into the next phase of life.

The Boulder Dam is an allusion to a symbol he knew well as a Vegas kid. It’s man’s unthinkable creation. The Hoover Dam is incredible sight to anyone who has seen it or grew up around it. I’ll never forget the day as a kid I first looked down and saw the Colorado from its rails. It is an awe-inspiring and terrifying view. But in the 40s it was still called the Boulder dam. Combine that with the 44 Chevy, and he’s creating an interesting time frame around this which fits, again with Elvis entering the scene next, who would have been a teen in those years, with his life in front of him but a point at which he makes the transition to becoming a musician.

What better place to make a jump into the next phase of life, to what we assume to be fame and worldliness, than from man’s impossible creation which stops God’s great river creation of the Colorado?

My opinion is he is viewing his own life through the lens of Elvis’. The jump could be the decision to become a professional musician, and the good and bad that comes with that. Maybe it’s generally about a transition to adulthood from teen years. Either way, it’s a very well executed sequence reminding us of these heavy jump off points in our lives.

“I jump from the edge

Into the silvery cold Colorado

Taken back by my shock response”

So he leaps to this Guiness fame. And he’s shocked when he hits the cold water. It wasn’t what he hoped. It didn’t fulfill him. It was just scary and cold.

But he exits the water, reborn. Such rich lyricism.

“I grabbed hold of a billboard that appeared out of nowhere

Asking where I would spend my eternity”

Why is it a Billboard? Put a capital B in there and it makes a lot of sense for a musician. Chef’s kiss awesome wordplay.

Got picked up by Elvis in a Tesla Model X

Jet-black ‘68 comeback leather

He was clean and sober

And he laughed when I asked him if it was all worth it

And he cried when he asked about Lisa Marie”

But, my goodness, the Elvis appearance takes this song from interesting symbolism to the greatest allegory not in scripture. It’s absolutely beautiful, poignant and incredible art.

You have to understand a little bit about the life of Elvis to understand the rest of the dream. Elvis in the 50s cannot really be understood by someone living in today’s age of fame. Nobody was more famous than him. Not even close. It was like Taylor Swift times a thousand. He literally invented rock and roll and music as we know it and wasn’t an icon, he was THE Icon.

But in the 60s he stopped touring and only did movies and highly commercialized soundtracks. His fame waned rapidly. And he didn’t deal well with it. He was prone to substance abuse, violence, extreme possessiveness of spouses and family. Today he would have a clinical diagnosis. His story arc was one of great extremes. Extreme excess and raw breakdowns.

In the late sixties, he decided to make a comeback. He started touring again and did a big TV comeback special. He died at 42 of a heart attack, very likely caused by the years of substance abuse, stress, and over-pursuit of fame.

As he enters this dream, Elvis is wearing the black leather outfit from his comeback special. What he wore to gain back fame after a great fall. After he’s already experienced the great up and down.

And he’s driving a Tesla X. Flowers is mixing past and present. Old excess and new shiny objects. Elvis WORSHIPPED cars. They were his thing. So this symbolism is both relevant and rich.

But Elvis is sober. He’s dead. He can’t use wordly substances to tint his self-reflection. He has to be honest with Flowers and himself. Interesting that he’s wearing his comeback outfit in his afterlife. Like he’s clinging to that desire for fame and simply can’t let it go even in the next world.

When asked if it was worth it, he laughs. He can’t say it was. But is likewise unwilling to admit it wasn’t. Then, he cries when he asks about his daughter, who is dead as well, and lived a life full of turmoil caused heavily by her father’s choices.

Elvis has to face his life and consider its eternal impact. While Flowers, in his dream, as one who reached stardom and worldly fame, considers where it’s left him and where he goes from there.

This comparison to Elvis is the perfect one, as he’s, the poster-child for fame’s devastating effects. But Flowers, or us as the listener, are still left to finish our story.

And then he ties up this song with maybe the most brilliant lyric of the last hundred years:

“Then he passed me the keys and said, “Put it on Jesus”

And we blew through starlight on bricklayers’ knees”

The use of the words “put it on Jesus” is so insanely clever. In a car, you “put it on” things like cruise control. A radio station. It’s a setting. But this isn’t about the car. It’s just an awesome instrument for the parable.

When we “put it on Jesus”, we put on him our pains, our sorrows, our sin, any chastisement of our peace.

It’s so important that Elvis gave him the keys. Jesus gets us there, but the dreamer has to drive himself. His path doesn’t have to be like Elvis’s was. There are no keys for a Tesla model x. But the word keys is very meaningful from a religious perspective and in the context of this parable, means we are all the drivers of our own fate, whether we will decide to accept His atonement or not.

After they put it on Jesus, they fly through starlight (to heaven), but not in luxury of leather. Or in a swimming pool. Or as a famous musician.

No, it’s on a bricklayer’s knees. Such humble symbolism. We have to kneel. Take our scrapes and bruises. Do the work. Keep our covenants. But know that despite our wounded knees (or maybe because of them) we are headed home, to Him.

You can live in the world, but not be of the world. You can have Fame and Fortune but not let them destroy you. You can suffer through temptation and trial in life but not let it define you.

In the dream, Flowers doesn’t drive the Tesla to heaven by himself. Elvis is with him. It’s “we.” Elvis was actually a deeply religious person. He was said to pray with bandmates before every show. He was a believer, despite the many messes he made in his life.

So the message becomes heaven is achievable to all, even those who struggle to let go of those worldly pursuits and can’t even admit as much after this life. All of us will eventually be recipients of the Lord’s grace.

Our eternal fate is not tied to our earthly circumstance. Rich or poor, famous or anonymous, favorable or horrible, we all can find the Savior in charity and humility for eternal happiness. Gold and glitter, Strauss and Stetson, battered and broken like Elvis, we are all invited to follow Him and see Him again.

I know it’s a dream, and probably not technically a parable, but I’m using the word because the interpretation is a Godly one. Parables were used by Jesus because you couldn’t be lazy and get them. You had to be humble, teachable and attentive.

I love that Flowers uses this concept of a dream sequence that’s raw, relatable and poignant, but a little obfuscated and deep. Maybe even a little painful to him. He hides not from his struggle and doubt. But with a humble lens sees that despite any struggles he’s faced, mistakes he’s made, or opportunities he’s missed, the chance is still there to learn from the mistakes or examples of others in the past, “put it on Jesus” and, as a humble servant on his knees, find his/our way home.

Even the song title, An American Dream is a delicious play on words. THE American Dream is about gaining material success. His is an alternative. AN American Dream. One not of material wealth, but spiritual peace.

I can’t thank him enough for the reminder, and the beautiful song I can listen to on repeat, to continue to be reminded to not become seduced by the glitter of world I still must live in, and find hope and peace to instead turn toward starlight and Him.

It’s too raw to call a hymn, but this song will be the anthem of this believer for many years to come.