Chris Martin's Oldies

This blog is soaked in yoga and golf talk , it is fresh with family stories, it smells of Dubai sunshine, it obsesses with art, it folllows Roger Federer, it sings to ColdPlay!

But the blogger has to admit: she only encountered Cold Play in 2010 with Viva La Vida. My brother reminds me of that, he tells me I am no different from the Eurotrash that only picks a band when they go mainstream.

The friend who was so thoughtful to gift me the pink ipod crammed it with loads of happiness and poetry. More than 50 songs by ColdPlay that I have just discovered like a treasure box full of gleaming precious stones.

I have listened to WHAT IF a dozen times now. And in the same way I once analyzed a Depeche Mode song at the onset of this blog, I will take the literary initiative to do the same here. I reiterate it loud and clear: some pop songs belong to the repertoire of our contemporary poetry and I thus elect Martin Gore and Chris Martin as my favorite poets. Martin sings:"No poem or song coud put right what I got wrong".

The single "What If" (from X and Y) is sang in the conditional tense. There is a French expression that says "with an IF, you could put Paris in a bottle" (avec un si on peut mettre Paris en bouteille). The love song is about a poet who feels rejected by his lover, as he gives her the choice to decide and the freedom for her to imagine living with him. Yet he urges her to try, to take a leap. It is a song that defies time and ideals. It sings of fatality and risk."Every step that you take can be your biggest mistake. It could bend or it can break. But that is the risk that you take."

And always his perfect idiom: "no reason or rime". His melodious voice on piano. The final oooooohs in crescendo, in refrain and the accompanying signature electric guitars.
As always the single belongs in a thematic album, X and Y. It develops the idea of love as a courageous feeling, an intrepid step, a mixture of trepidation and fear. Chris Martin sings of things broken, an attempt to fix things. His voice lingers in a song called Fix You. It is romantic because he says: "when you loose something you can't replace...when you love someone but it goes to waste".

Cold Play is more upbeat today, as the band sings of heaven and optimism. Yet listening to their oldies, no matter how sad, was appeasing. In the song Talk he has a quirky image, full of hope: " you can climb a ladder up to the sun".

When my mood swings low, I can always listen to Chris Martin!


Here are the lyrics of WHAT IF:
What if there was no lie
Nothing wrong, nothing right
What if there was no time
And no reason, or rhyme
What if you should decide
That you don't want me there by your side
That you don't want me there in your life
What if I got it wrong
And no poem or song
Could put right what I got wrong
Or make you feel I belong

What if you should decide
That you don't want me there by your side
That you don't want me there in your life

Ooh ooh-ooh, that's right
Let's take a breath, jump over the side
Ooh ooh-ooh, that's right
How can you know it, if you don't even try
Ooh ooh-ooh, that's right

Every step that you take
Could be your biggest mistake
It could bend or it could break
That's the risk that you take