Viva La Vida by Coldplay

When I think of the words “cold play,” I think of playing a piece of music for the first time. Playing something cold may not be a great for an audience but it’s a fascinating and unique experience for musicians. Figuring out how music unfolds is like reading a great book for the first time. We also get that feeling from listening to great music, a sense of anticipation and wonder. The amazing thing is after listening to “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay multiple times I am still getting that feeling.

What makes a piece of art interesting is not necessarily what makes it meaningful. In researching this song, I’ve read different theories about the subjects of this song including ideas that it’s based on Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Caesar, Mohammad, Hitler or even Moses. I don’t know which interpretation is right, I don’t know Coldplay’s intent and I don’t think defining the specific subject of this song gets us to the core of why this song is meaningful to so many people.

If Coldplay wanted to express the specific story of a historical figure, they would have made it clear within the context of the song. Yes, there are specific lines in this song that draw from historical events that we know but Coldplay uses them in service of the overall emotional meaning in the song. If you think about the art you love, it’s not the subject that makes us love it like we do. “The Grapes Of Wrath” by John Steinbeck is one of my favorite books. I enjoy the fact that it’s about the Great Depression but what I I love about it is the emotional journey of the characters in the book and how it makes me feel on my own family and what it means to be American.

“Viva La Vida” directly translates in Spanish to the phrase “live the life” but it’s meaning in Spanish is “long live life,” a celebration of life. The song is from the perspective of a former king who is looking back on how he came to rule his kingdom and how he lost his throne. This isn’t a fallen king who is regretful or depressed. This king is looking back, like many of us do, focusing on the glory in his past.

The songs start with the narrator talking about how when he was king he could control the seas, and instill fear in the eyes of his enemies. There is this mythic power and feeling of invisibility that accompanies his description of what it was like to be the king. This is similar to the way we feel about their past. It’s not that we were invisible in our past, but it’s that we feel more venerable right now. Because of this, we often look back to college or elementary school as being a time where nothing could go wrong. The past always looks brighter from a distance and sometimes our minds exaggerate how that time felt turning us from people into royalty.

Coldplay juxtaposes descriptions of being king with explaining the current situation and how things fell apart. This man now sleeps and works on the streets but at one time while telling us stories of the past. Revolutionaries came into his palaces and wanted to execute him. The people can’t believe what the king he has become. It is at this point towards the end of the song when the king realizes that he was just a puppet and asks, “who would ever want to be king.”

It’s like going out with someone. The dreams of true love motivate people to find each other but often the fact that people are too different or they live in different cities breaks apart a relationship. Reality can do tear apart dreams but it cannot take away how great things were in our memories. After break-ups, people often can’t imagine people would even want to be in a relationships, but more often then not dreams inspire people to take chances in life and chase dreams despite the weight of reality.

The chorus captures glory of being king. Lyrics don’t always express feelings through a narrative form. Bob Dylan would often create emotion not with the meaning of the words but instead how they sounded. Coldplay doesn’t create a concrete statement on being king in the chorus but like collage takes different images to create a feeling. The bell, the choir, the missionaries, the sword, the mirror and the shield all create a sense of majesty. There is a sense of something epic and truly amazing in this description. The music helps paints this picture with the chimes toll that on the offbeats and timpani drums that boom in the background at the beginning of ever phrase.

Something that instantly made struck me about this song was the use of the string instruments. Coldplay goes against the conventions of rock music and utilizes strings instruments at the core of it’s rhythmic and harmonic structure. Only a handful of artists have done this in the past including the Beatles’s“Eleanor Rigby,” and Annie Lennox’s “Walking On Broken Glass.” Sometimes it’s easy to forget how rhythmic and driving a string section can be. Most of the time when strings are used in pop music that provide sustained melodic lines. These are not synthesized strings and because of that you can hear a slight grit and bite in the beginning of each note which provides a unique energy to this song.

One of the most distinctive things about Coldplay is the fact that the music seems to always be in motion. It’s like the sound is constantly swirling around you with different colors appearing coming from all directions. Even though the strings maintain a constant rhythm and there is a strong steady bass drum pulse throughout the each verse, every section of the song has unique layers. The instruments in the song all relate to each other and change the way we listen to each section, like how viewing a painting from different distances and angle changes the way it looks.

Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, sings like he’s telling a story to child. There is a sense of lightness in his tone even when he describing people wanting his head on a platter. In some Coldplay songs Martin stays in his higher head voice, but this song he freely dips into his chest voice and sings with intimacy without sounding weak.

In some ways, this song is a modern fairy tale. Kings and queens in most of our minds are as much as part of childhood stories as they are part of world history. Coldplay plays with our perspective and creates a unique musical experience. This song may be about Napoleon, I’m not sure, but the meaning of this song for me speaks to dreams that motivates us, the reality that tears us down and the regret that we all have to live with.

I’m reminded when I hear the chorus of this song that life is great and that we need to celebrate the great moments in our lives because it’s that memories of happiness that keep us going. We must keep chasing those dreams, because every so often reality doesn’t tear us down and we get to live as kings for a moment which makes all the struggle worth it and our lives that much more meaningful.