Okay, so for this deep dive, I want to take you
back. Let's go to December 1st, 2009. 2009. Got
it. The world is listening to Lady Gaga. The
Black Eyed Peas are just, they're everywhere.
And we are deep, deep in the era of neon skinny
jeans. Oh, yeah. And then, kind of out of nowhere,
one of the biggest rock bands in the world, The
Killers, decides to drop a Christmas single.
And not just any Christmas single. I mean, they
aren't covering Silent Night or doing some, you
know, standard Jingle Bell rockabilly track.
Right. They release a track called Happy Birthday
Guadalupe. Yeah. And on paper, this whole thing
looks like a potential disaster. It really does.
It's a collaboration between a Las Vegas synth
rock stadium band, a mariachi group, and it's
all tied into this massive global charity campaign.
It sounds like something that should be a chaotic.
A total mess. Like a fever dream you'd have after
eating too much holiday food. It does sound improbable,
but I mean, that is exactly why we're talking
about it. Because instead of being a train wreck,
this track is, well, it's arguably a masterpiece
of genre fusion. It's a cultural artifact that
tells us so much about where music was in 2009,
how charity and celebrity culture were intersecting,
and how a band can create a tradition out of
pure eccentricity. So that's the mission today.
We are unpacking the documentation surrounding
Happy Birthday Guadalupe. We're going to look
at the credits, the bizarre music video with
a 90s icon, and the reception. But I have to
ask you, before we really get into the weeds,
does a mariachi Christmas song by an indie band
actually work? Or are we just looking at this
through like rose colored glasses? That is the
fundamental question, right? It's a high wire
act. You have the earnestness of a Christmas
song, the technical complexity of mariachi instrumentation
and the swagger of Brandon Flowers. Right. If
even one of those elements fails, the whole thing
just becomes a parody. But I think the documentation
shows they treated this with like deadly seriousness.
Well, let's start with the context, because the
first thing that struck me in the research is
that this wasn't a random decision. The Killers
didn't just wake up in 2009 and decide to go
buy sombreros. No, not at all. This was part
of a sequence. Exactly. You have to look at the
timeline. By 2009, the Killers had established
a very specific, very strange holiday ritual.
This was their fourth consecutive Christmas single.
Right. It started back in 2006. With a great
big sled. Which is a great track, very indie
rock. But then they followed it up with Don't
Shoot Me Santa in 2007. Mm -hmm. And that's where
I feel like the tone shifted a bit. That wasn't
just a song. It was a narrative. It was dark
comedy. It absolutely was. And that really sets
the stage for Guadalupe. By the time we get to
2009, the fans knew the drill. They were right.
They weren't expecting a lullaby. They were expecting
a weird cinematic story. The band had effectively
trained their audience to expect the unexpected
every December. And just to place this in the
band's career timeline. This is the day and age
era, right? Correct. They had released the album
Day and Age in 2008. So they are riding high
on hits like Human and Spaceman. Okay, so this
is peak killers. This is their pop star phase.
Lots of feathers, lots of synth, very, very polished.
They aren't the gritty rock band from Hot Fuss
anymore. They're global superstars. Which brings
us to the why. Why does a band at the peak of
their global fame commit to writing, recording,
and releasing a brand new song every single Christmas?
Right. Most bands just, you know, record a cover
of Last Christmas and call it a day. And this
is where the story gets bigger than just the
music. We have to talk about Product Red. R -E
-D with the parentheses. Oh, I remember this
vividly. You couldn't walk into a mall in the
mid -2000s without seeing it. It was a cultural
juggernaut. Spearheaded by Bono and Bobby Shriver,
the whole idea was to partner with massive brands,
Apple, Gap, Starbucks, Converse, to create products
where a portion of the profits went to the Global
Fund to fight HIV AIDS in Africa. It was very
corporate activism, wasn't it? That whole era
of buy this red iPod and save the world. It was,
and it definitely drew some criticism for that
exact reason. But the revenue it generated was
undeniable. And the killers wanted to be part
of that conversation. They didn't just donate
money quietly. They turned their entire Christmas
output into a dedicated revenue stream for the
global fund. So Happy Birthday Guadalupe is technically
a charity product. It is. All proceeds went to
R .E .D. And that that changes how we view the
weirdness of the track. How so? Well. if they
were doing this just to sell albums for themselves
it might seem self -indulgent to go out and hire
a mariachi band but doing it for a global charity
initiative it gives them license to be experimental
it sort of signals hey we're doing this for a
good cause so we're gonna have fun with it it's
also a massive flex isn't it to say We are going
to release a song that is completely off genre
and it's still going to make money for charity
because we are the killers. Absolutely. It's
an ambition to be a U2 sized band. U2 saves the
world. The Killers wanted to show they could
operate on that level too. But let's actually
talk about the music itself because this is where
the rubber meets the road. Or where the boots
hit the sand, I guess. Exactly. The sound. This
is what I was so skeptical about. The credits
list. The Killers featuring Wild Light and Mariachi
El Bronx. Now, I know The Killers. But who are
Mariachi El Bronx? Okay, this is a crucial detail.
Mariachi El Bronx is actually the alter ego of
a Los Angeles hardcore punk band called The Bronx.
Wait, really? A punk band. Yes. They started
doing mariachi music as like a side project,
but they approached it with incredible technical
respect. They weren't mocking the genre. They
learned the instrumentation, the guitar on the
Vuela, the trumpet lines. Wow. So when you hear
them on this track, you aren't hearing a studio
session musician hired for an hour. You are hearing
a band that understands the energy of punk and
the structure of mariachi. That makes so much
more sense because the energy on the track is
so high. It doesn't feel like. Easy listening.
It drives. Exactly. And look at the production
credits produced by the killers and Stuart Price.
Stuart Price is a legend. He did Madonna's Confessions
on a dance floor. He did Day at Age. He's the
guy you call when you want things to sound shimmering
and expensive. Right. So think about the engineering
challenge here. You have Stuart Price. who is
famous for his wall -of -sound digital compression
and sparkling synths. And you have a traditional
acoustic mariachi ensemble. Mixing those two
things, getting the brass to cut through the
synthesizers without sounding jarring, is incredibly
difficult. I was listening to it with headphones,
and there's that moment where the trumpets kick
in, and instead of clashing with the electric
guitars, they sort of... They reinforce them.
They occupy the same sonic frequency as a lead
guitar riff. It's brilliant. Yeah. The track
is classified in the records as mariachi and
indie rock, which are two genres that usually
do not speak to each other at all. But here,
the driving rhythm of the mariachi strumming,
it just replaces the typical indie rock hi -hat
pattern and propels the song forward. And the
runtime. I noticed it's four minutes and 33 seconds.
Which is an eternity in radio time. It is. A
standard pop song is three minutes, maybe 3 .30.
Four and a half minutes means they weren't trying
to make a quick jingle. They wrote a saga. And
look at the songwriting credits. It's not just
Brandon Flowers. It's Flowers, Dave Kuning, Mark
Stormer, Ronnie Vinucci Jr. The whole band is
credited. So everyone had their fingerprints
on this. Which suggests a jam session approach.
You can kind of hear it in the structure. The
song shifts. It has breakdowns. It has that spoken
word dialogue section. Very theatrical. It is.
The male vocal duet credit is interesting, too,
because the vocals trade off in a way that feels
almost like a Broadway play set in Tijuana. It's
very dramatic. But the killers have always been
dramatic. Yeah. Brandon Flowers loves a bit of
theater. Oh, he does. And vocally, he completely
commits. He isn't singing this with a wink and
a nod. He's suing with the same passion he brings
to Mr. Brightside. He treats the lyrics, which
are about a cowboy pining for a lost love named
Guadalupe, as if they are Shakespeare. Let's
talk about those lyrics for a second. Because
usually Christmas songs are about, you know,
coming home, I'll be home for Christmas, driving
home for Christmas. But this song is about looking
for someone. It's a song of absence. I am living
in a dream and I am open to the scheme. He's
wandering. It fits into the blue Christmas tradition,
the Elvis tradition of being lonely on the holiday.
Right. But instead of sitting by a fire, he's
wandering the desert. Which perfectly segues
into the music video. Because if the audio is
a mix of Vegas glitz and mariachi tradition,
the video is, well, it's Luke Perry in the dirt.
The visual component here is just vital. Released
the same day, December 1st. And it stars the
late Luke Perry. And we have to contextualize
Luke Perry in 2009. This is post -Beverly Hills
90210, but pre -Riverdale. A long time pre -Riverdale.
He was in this interesting phase of his career
where he was an icon, but kind of a nostalgic
one. He was a working actor for sure, but his
casting here brings a very specific kind of baggage.
When you see Luke Perry, you think of the cool
brooding loner. Dylan McKay. Exactly, Dylan McKay.
So casting him as a cowboy, searching for his
lost love, the audience instantly buys it. We
don't need a backstory. We look at his face,
we see the dust on his coat, and we go, OK, this
guy is heartbroken. And the setting? There is
zero snow in this video. None. Not a single flake.
And that is a bold choice for a Christmas release.
It is. Usually the visual language of Christmas
is non -negotiable. Snow, red, green, pine trees.
This video is brown, orange, yellow. It's dusty.
But somehow it still feels like a holiday video.
Why do you think that is? I think it connects
to the nativity aspect of Christmas, the journey,
you know, the idea of traveling across a desert.
But mostly it works because the music anchors
it. The mariachi horns summon that landscape.
That's a great point. If they had filmed Luke
Perry walking through a snowy forest in Aspen
while that trumpet line played, it would have
been cognitively dissonant. It would have been
weird. Yeah. The video respects the audio. They
leaned into the whole Southwest aesthetic completely.
And remember, the killers are from Las Vegas.
They aren't from New York or London. Their version
of winter is the high desert. So this feels...
authentic to their geography in a way that a
sleigh ride song never would it's americana but
a very specific slice of it so okay we have the
song we have the video we have the charity angle
did anyone actually care because 2009 was a busy
year for music did this thing chart this is where
we have to uh manage our expectations and also
understand the uk music market specifically okay
hit me with the stats it peaked at number 110
on the uk singles chart okay number 110. To an
American listener, that sounds like a failure.
It does. If you're 110 on the Billboard Hot 100,
you effectively don't exist. Right. But the UK
chart system is different, especially in December.
The race for the Christmas number one in the
UK is a national sport. It is a blood sport.
Right. Everyone releases a song. Every massive
pop star, every X Factor winner, every novelty
act is releasing a single that specific week
to try and grab the top spot. The market is completely
saturated. So getting on the list at all is hard.
For a charity single released digitally that
is almost five minutes long and features a mariachi
band. Cracking the top 200 is actually a sign
of a very dedicated fan base. That's a good point.
It means thousands of people specifically went
out and bought this track in a week where they
were being bombarded by the biggest marketing
campaigns in the world. It really shows the cult
status of the killers in the UK. They are almost
bigger there than in the US sometimes. Consistently.
And the song had longevity. It wasn't just a
one week blip. It appeared in the 2015 film Christmas
Eve. It became a staple. on indie holiday playlists.
And the tradition itself didn't stop there. No,
they kept going. The next year they did Boots,
which was much more somber. Then the Cowboys
Christmas Ball in 2011, which feels like a spiritual
sequel to Guadalupe. Well, the Cowboys Christmas
Ball is definitely in the same cinematic universe.
It is. But I would argue Guadalupe represents
the golden era of this tradition. It was the
moment where the budget, the band's fame, and
the creativity all peaked perfectly. They had
the money to get Luke Perry and Stuart Price,
but they were still weird enough to want to do
it. Later on, the Christmas songs got a little,
I don't want to say tired, but maybe less surprising.
They became more introspective, certainly. Guadalupe
is just so joyous. It has a fiesta energy to
it, despite the sad lyrics. It's a celebration.
Zooming out, we're looking at this documentation
from 2009. What is the takeaway for us today?
Why does this matter beyond just being a fun
piece of trivia? I think it matters because it's
a rejection of cynicism. How so? Well, think
about it. It would have been so easy for the
killers to be cynical. Oh, we have to do a charity
song for a fine. Let's just record a quick acoustic
cover, put it on iTunes and take the tax write
off. Right. Or just license Mr. Brightside for
a commercial and donate the fee. Exactly. But
they didn't. They put. actual artistic labor
into this they collaborated with artists from
a totally different genre mariachi el bronx and
they elevated them they wrote original music
they filmed a high production video they treated
a charity christmas single with the same artistic
integrity as a lead single from an album that's
true it shows a respect for the audience too
they didn't think oh the fans will buy anything
they thought let's give them something worth
buying and it highlights the elasticity of the
indie rock label in the late 2000s. It was a
time when bands were allowed to be playful. I
feel like we've lost a bit of that. Everything
is so curated now. This just feels like a bunch
of friends with a lot of money having a great
time in the studio. It really does. And frankly,
the song slaps. Yeah. The horns are incredible.
It is genuinely a catchy piece of composition.
If you strip away the Christmas context, it's
just a great song. So we've unpacked the mariachi
fusion, the RE campaign context, the Luke Perry.
Desert Saga and the UK chart performance. It's
a weird, wonderful package. It is a unique cocktail
that could only have existed in 2009. Before
we wrap up, I want to leave you, the listener,
with a thought. We talked a lot about the charity
aspect, Product Red, and you made the point that
the good cause gave them license to be experimental.
It shielded them from criticism, in a way. Right.
So my question is this. Does knowing a song is
for charity change how we critique the art? That's
a heavy question. I mean, if Guadalupe was just
a commercial single released for profit, would
we be as forgiving of the genre mashing? Would
we call it cringy? Or do we give it a pass because
we know the money bought medicine? It really
challenges us to separate the aesthetics from
the ethics. Can a good act produce bad art? Or
does the good act elevate the art? In this case,
I think the art stands on its own, but the charity
certainly helps the narrative. It's the halo
effect. Something to mull over next time you
stream a charity compilation. Thanks for taking
this deep dive into the desert with me. Always
a pleasure to unpack the strange history of rock
and roll. And happy birthday, Guadalupe, wherever
you are.