On the band’s website’s “White Noise” section, Mikel Jollett wrote about other musician’s influences that helped him create this song:

I once wrote a song about Lady Gaga and Fredd[ie] Mercury entitled, “Stefani, I’m Tired of Taking Chances.” It was a kind of torch song with lines like:
“And some day, they would all go rather gaga, as you danced on the stage without clothes,
so much like Old Madonna, With that crimson in your cheeks and that nose.
So I know you love David Bowie, because you told me one night in my dreams,
And I wished someday you could know me, we would stay up and listen to Queen.”

That was before I heard the a cappella version of “Under Pressure” that changed my life (at least for awhile) and made me want to make big music about big populist ideas and abandon any pretense that I too didn’t love “Another One Bites the Dust” or “We Will Rock You” or like 10 Billy Joel songs that you’re supposed to hate if you’re a Serious Artist (Summer Highland Falls, anyone?) in favor of obscure tracks by Townes van Zandt or Neutral Milk Hotel.

But I do. I love them. (I mean, I love Colorado Girl too but I’m just saying) I love those big pop songs. I probably don’t love the modern equivalents much (except Adele, of course. Anyone who says they don’t like Adele is lying). Most other modern pop sounds like soda commercials to me. That’s another rant.

The point is I wanted to make some music that was more spiritually similar to Fredd[ie] Mercury than Robert Smith or Bruce Springsteen. It’s fun. It sounds huge. It’s catchy and a little weird and there is a sense of abandonment to it. You get to have samples of choirs and you get to equate manhood with honesty and the ability to see past the darkness that can envelope your life in favor of the light you can bring others. And then when you sing it, you feel like Fredd[ie] and you can embrace your inner Fredd[ie]-ness and God Damn this song makes me want to stand on stage in a skin-tight onesie with a thick-ass mustache and just belt.

I’m not saying that will happen (though you never know, I mean why start a rock band if you’re not willing to put on your mother’s dress and dance around onstage?) All I’m saying is the trappings of pop music are no better or worse than the trappings of “art” music and the main thing is to not feel trapped. I think Fredd[ie] could get behind that.