- Pete Buttigieg's 2020 campaign became synonymous with "High Hopes" by Panic! at the Disco.
- That walk-up song could have been "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers, according to Lis Smith.
- Smith, who was Buttigieg's communications advisor, told Insider she saw it as a generational fit.
Were it not for a hard look at the lyrics from a campaign lawyer, the multi-platinum hit single "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers could have been the official song for Pete Buttigieg in the 2020 campaign, according to his former communications adviser.
Lis Smith, the political communications specialist who helped bring Buttigieg to national prominence before he became President Joe Biden's transportation secretary, revealed the decision in an interview with New York Magazine's Intelligencer.
"I wanted this to be Pete's campaign anthem, but our campaign lawyer said it had Me Too undertones," Smith said in an interview for her forthcoming book, "Any Given Tuesday."
Instead, Buttigieg would walk on stage hundreds of times to "High Hopes" by Panic! at the Disco.
The lyrics of "Mr. Brightside" depict a jealous lover going down a spiral of paranoia, fixated on infidelity.
Now I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke and she's taking a drag
Now they're going to bed, and my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head, but she's touching hisChest now, he takes off her
Dress now, let me go
And I just can't look, it's killing me
"Who would have thought betrayal would have sounded so good?" Brandon Flowers, the lead singer and songwriter for The Killers, told Rolling Stone in 2018.
While the literal interpretation of the song is more about heartache and an obsession with an imagined cheating scenario — "It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss!" — Smith told Insider that she saw the song as a generational fit.
"It's simple — he represents the bright side of politics," Smith told Insider. "That and it's a peak millennial song and no one needs to hear more Bruce Springsteen at political rallies."