When You Were Young

The Killers wrote and produced it, with Flood and Alan Moulder as co-producers. The strings are played by Adrina Hanson, Maryam Haddad and Tristan Moyer. Howie Weinberg mastered it. It was released on 18 September 2006 and is in B major. It was reportedly influenced by Springsteen's Born to Run and Thunder Road.

It reached 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was their first number one on the US Modern Rock chart. In Britain it reached two, and in Australia it reached ten. It was nominated for the Grammy for Best Rock Song, and came fourth on Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2006. The B-sides were Where the White Boys Dance and All the Pretty Faces, and there was a Jacques Lu Cont mix called Thin White Duke.

Anthony Mandler directed the video in Tlayacapan, Mexico, with the Mexican actors Gustavo Sánchez Parra and Sonia Couoh. It tells a story of a marriage and a betrayal, and an alternate version has the woman jump off a cliff. Flowers said his version of what the song is about differs from the one Mandler portrays. The video was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.

Live and covers

On 29 November 2006 the band recorded a stripped-back version for Live from Abbey Road. Setlist.fm logs 987 performances. Amy Macdonald covered it in Scotland and at Lowlands in 2008, the Noisettes in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge on 25 March 2009, and Taking Back Sunday at Taste of Chaos in London on 18 November 2006. Biffy Clyro played it on live radio on Today FM.