Enterlude and Exitlude

Background

Brandon Flowers wrote "Enterlude" and "Exitlude" while the Killers were recording in a hotel casino; he was playing a piano and noticed a room key-card that read "we hope you enjoy your stay," which inspired the songs. Flowers said the melody of "Enterlude" came from a dream in which Kurt Cobain was on a ship in the clouds singing like Bob Dylan.

He described "Enterlude" as a nice refrain akin to the beginning of a sitcom or movie that welcomes the listener before the credits. The final piano note of "Enterlude" segues into the opening riff of "When You Were Young." Flowers called "Exitlude" beautiful, noting its sadness but that it leaves a desire to return to Sam's Town, and compared it to the theme tune from the sitcom Cheers. The songs have been described as bookends to Sam's Town, similar to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and its reprise by the Beatles, as well as "In the Flesh?" and "In the Flesh" from Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Release and reception

"Enterlude" and "Exitlude" were released with the rest of Sam's Town on September 27, 2006 in Japan, and October 3 in the United States. Reviews were mostly positive: Pitchfork called them bookends that set the songs within a setting possibly based on the Vegas townie casino of the album's title, while PopMatters described them as pointless, self-indulgent bookends for a nonexistent concept album. NME remarked they are like a tongue-in-cheek greeting and goodbye serenading from a tacky casino bar, and The Young Folks praised them for making listeners eagerly wonder what the stay will entail. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone, who rated Sam's Town 2 out of 5 stars, stated that the songs frame the album with a vague hotel/casino theme that adds up to nothing except faux-Boss cliches.

In popular culture

American YouTuber Technoblade, who died from metastatic sarcoma in June 2022, requested that his father use "Exitlude" in the video announcing his death; his father, known as Technodad, left the song out due to copyright reasons and instead linked it on a post on the r/technoblade subreddit. Canadian streamer xQc has regularly used "Exitlude" as outro music for his streams since 2018, stating he is not a fan of the Killers and only likes "Exitlude."

Live performances

"Enterlude" and "Exitlude" made their live debut at the Celebrity Theater on the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas on August 23, 2006, and were frequently played during the Sam's Town Tour in 2006 and 2007. "Enterlude" was commonly played during the Imploding the Mirage Tour from 2021 to 2023, usually as the second song after "My Own Soul's Warning." Both songs saw a rise in performances during the Rebel Diamonds Tour in 2024, with "Enterlude" performed 14 times and "Exitlude" 12 times. They were performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London on July 6, 2009 to an empty venue for the DVD release of Live from the Royal Albert Hall (2009).