UPDATE: My analysis available here.
In yesterday's small-scale questions thread, @cjet79 asks why the song "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers has had such staying power, famously staying in the UK singles charts decades after its initial release. Some explanations (including my own) point to its compositional elements; others focus on its lyrics and subject matter. @100ProofTollBooth argues that it's a very universal and relatable song, as "The experience of infidelity (to some degree) is common to many (most? idk) people."
I'm curious if this is really the case, so I decided to go Aella mode and created a simple survey to find out about people's experiences with infidelity. It consists of a few demographic questions (age, sex, sexual orientation, relationship style), then asks you if you've ever had an unfaithful partner, then asks you if you've ever been unfaithful to a partner.
Completely anonymous, and I've set it up so the form doesn't collect email addresses if you're logged in.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The only context in which I encountered it was an old Soothouse video in which they did one of the "Google translate 1,000 times in various languages" games with the lyrics, producing:
But I'd never actually heard the music, and still haven't.
Surprisingly, most of the context came through, and the "She's taking a drag" line becoming "And she performs oral sex," is almost a metaphor implicit in the song. I don't know how Google Translate somehow amplified the sexual content.
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