“Terrible Thing” is the third song from The Killers' seventh album Pressure Machine. The song centers on a gay teenager who’s contemplating suicide. This song just as the others in the album are inspired from Brandon Flowers' memories. In an interview for The Rolling Stone Magazine, Flowers stated:

There were kids I grew up with who I didn’t know until years later that they were gay. It must have just been so hard. I think the world is moving in a more positive direction and a more inclusive direction, but this was still in the Nineties and people kept this stuff close.