When You Were Young

Society teaches children about love from a very young age in the forms of holidays, television shows, music, and books. In fact, the first word that I was able to write was love. The love that children learn about is pure, innocent, and usually begins with an “I knew they were the one” moment. When children adhere to this too closely as they grow up, their perception of love deteriorates because love in reality is rarely the kind they learned about when they were young. The Killer’s song “When You Were Young”, released in their album Sam’s Town, contrasts childhood expectations of love to love in reality and the effects that naive, unreal expectations yield. Told in third person, “When You Were Young” serves as a warning to people who emanate false expectations of love and simultaneously allows hurt lovers to connect to it.


The girl whose story The Killers tell believed that love is pure and innocent. Much like a fairy tale, she waited for a boy’s heroic action to save her from her solitude. Essentially, she was like Rapunzel harboring fantasies of the outside world and waiting in her sheltering tower for a chance to go outside. This is implied through the title “When You Were Young”. Youth is often associated to innocence because children are sheltered. Similarly, in the music video the girl wears white in the beginning of the sign symbolizing purity and innocence. Later in the song, the girl “play[s] forgiveness” as her boyfriend approaches her (in the music video he is her husband but I cannot find substantial evidence to support that based solely on the lyrics). Her boyfriend has wronged her (the music video insists that he cheated). Because she knows no better, she goes back to him. She is stuck with him. The diction “play” implies that she acts as if she forgives him but does not actually. This is because when he hurt her, he crushed her fantasies of love replacing with the bitter reality -- everyone is flawless, there is no such thing as perfect love. 

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus

But he talks like a gentleman 

Like you imagined 

When you were young 

The man proved that he is not a saint as she pictured when she was young. The line “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus” is a metaphor comparing men to Jesus. Men cannot live up to Jesus. This reinforces that no one is perfect, as Jesus is seen to be. Men, or more generally humans, cannot embody the same virtue and purity that Jesus does in love. When they do, it is only a facade.

We're burning down the highway skyline 

On the back of a hurricane  

That started turning

When you were young

The symbolism of the hurricane reveals the nature of the girl. The girl is like the eye of the hurricane because she is benevolent and peaceful but surrounded by a storm. The hurricane around her started turning when she “was young” or rather when she upheld the belief that love is solely innocent and pure as a fairy tale. Just as hurricanes pick up speed, so did the calamities surrounding her because she was not in touch in reality. Similarly, hurricanes are volatile. Thus the imagery of the hurricane conveys a sudden and unavoidable effect to her epiphany about love.

They say the devil's waterIt ain't so sweet

You don't have to drink right now

But you can dip your feet

Every once in a little while

The devil represents sin, evil, and temptation. The “devil’s water” serves as a tempting place for the girl to fall. After having her fantasies crushed, she needs solace. Often times after a heartbreak, people give into temptations they know are not right. The girl faces this conflict. The singer conveys that it is fine to “dip” into temptations when one is melancholy. To “drink” from the “devil’s water” is not, however, the correct choice. One should not let a broken heart completely change them. It is fine to visit the dark side, but to reside there is to lose all hope and innocence.


While adherence to innocence is safe it is also dangerous because exposure to the real world is inevitable. (I don’t mean to sound as cynical as I might appear to be)