Who would ever want to be king?
Coldplay's latest album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, has been an international success. The title track, 'Viva la Vida', was the first UK single to top the US music charts since the Spice Girls' 'Wannabe' in 1997, and the album is the second fastest-selling album in UK history as well as being the best selling release in iTunes' history.
It certainly appears that it has struck a chord with album reviewers and music fans alike, yet the album focuses widely on disillusionment, disappointment and despair. Thematically and lyrically, the content of the album is very different from the current spectrum of bands and genres.
Conceptually, the album is very tight as it explores different thought processes about a common theme. After the hopefully-titled introductory track, 'Life In Technicolor', Coldplay set the scene of mystery and suspense with the eerie story told in the song 'Cemeteries of London', which tells the tale of an unspecified 'they' who explore London during the night, 'searching to see God in their own way'. As the story unfolds, the adventurers search on until they discover what they look for, but, apparently, were not prepared to encounter:
God is in the houses and God is in my head . . . and all the cemeteries in London . . . I see God come in my garden, but I don't know what he said, For my heart it wasn't open.
The results of this encounter with God pervade the entire remainder of the album, as the songs reflect upon the brevity of life, and the feeling that 'there must be something more' ('42'). This awareness of the temporality of life is most perfectly expressed in the single that has hit number one in the UK and the US, 'Viva La Vida', which tells a story 'about a king who's lost his kingdom'(Guy Berryman, bassist). The song juxtaposes the power the king once had, and the swiftness with which that disappeared, emphasizing the fallibility of his systems of power and security:
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand
This is very much like King Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great statue that was destroyed. As Daniel interprets the dream, he emphasizes God's sovereignty over all earthly rulers, 'He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them' (Daniel 2:21).
What Chris Martin communicates in these songs is a feeling of existential anxiety, a realisation of one's own insignificance in the scope of time and space. This generally leads to the sentiments of nihilism and worthlessness that appear in other songs on the album, as Martin sings, 'I'm just waiting til the shine wears off' ('Lost!'). The realisation that things are temporary, and that there is a greater reality after death, often leads to a great insecurity and a dissatisfaction with current structures of security in life, places where we'd once put all our hope.
© Copyright George Critchley (2008)
