The Killers revise ‘Land of the Free’ to reflect George Floyd’s death

June 8 (UPI) — View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Killers (@thekillers) on Jun 7, 2020 at 4:50pm PDT

Rock band The Killers have revised their 2019 protest song “Land of the Free” to reflect George Floyd’s death.

The group performed a new, stripped-down version of the song Monday following Floyd’s death. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died May 25 in Minneapolis, Minn., while being restrained by a police officer who knelt on his neck.

In the new lyrics, The Killers singer Brandon Flowers references the exact time the officer, Derek Chauvin, kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“How many killings must one man watch in his home?” Flowers sings. “Eight measured minutes and 46 seconds, another bog in the bag / Another stain on the flag.”

The Killers originally released “Land of the Free” in January 2019 to protest gun violence and President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. At the time, Flowers said he first conceived the song after the Sandy Hook school shooting.

The Killers were to release their sixth studio album, Imploding the Mirage, in May, but postponed the release due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The band has released three singles from the album thus far, “Caution,” “Fire in Bone” and “My Own Soul’s Warning.”