When you lose somethin' you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse? Coldplay – Fix You
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Martin’s wife at the time, Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow, had just lost her father when he wrote this song. And while our opinions on our parents will vary from person to person, I think we can all agree that losing someone close to us can be quite devastating and causes us to reflect on all the missed opportunities in that relationship.
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I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called "Yellow" Coldplay – Yellow
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So meta – “Yellow” is the song Chris wrote about writing the song “Yellow” for a girl.
While Chris revealed (somewhat anti-climactically) that there isn’t much meaning behind the word “yellow”, it is a good color to title the song you’re writing about a loved one. That’s because yellow traditionally symbolizes warmth, cheerfulness, and hope.
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“Drawing a line in the sand” means to set clear boundaries as to what one can and can’t do. In this case, it appears that Chris/the narrator refused to allow his friends to poke fun at his partner because he now has strong feelings for her.
It may also mean that he drew a line inside himself to determine what he can and cannot do or behave as for this girl and her happiness.
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This is actually kind of a letdown, as yellow stars (class G) are the fifth-brightest stars in the sky (and only 7.7% of the stars in our solar neighborhood are this color). Most of the stars we see in the night sky are class A (the third brightest), while Class O stars are the most brilliant (but also the rarest, comprising just 0.00003% of the stars in our solar neighborhood).
In 2005, during Coldplay’s performance on MTV Storytellers, Chris Martin revealed the origins of the song:
This song just came out of the blue one night in Wales. Originally, it sounded like a Neil Young song, but it was missing this key word, and it used to go, “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you/And all the things you do…”, and there was this gap. So I was sitting there singing the song and I looked to the nearest book to me, and it was the Yellow Pages. In an alternate universe, this song would be called “Playboy.”
In 2011, during his interview with Howard Stern, Martin noted that “yellow” just rolled off the tongue and came to him when Coldplay was first recording the song, and thus, “Yellow” was born. Funny enough, Martin doubted the authenticity of his own lyric, since he feels stars are only yellow in Christmas cards.
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Before the 19th century and the popularization of steam-powered ships, sea-travel was quite dangerous and it was common for whole ships to be lost in a squall or for crews to starve because the winds left them stranded. In addition to wreckages from naval battles, the ocean floor is littered with the remains of ships. The ships, since evacuated of crew by aquatic scavengers, lay vacant and ghosts of their former glory.
Also, during the Stone Age, the English Channel was once dry land. Archaeologists have found abandoned villages at the bottom of the Channel that were swallowed up by the ocean.
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You may finally one day give up your religion (if not your faith altogether), but those outside the family of faith are often ostracized for not believing in some form of higher power. And as the previous lines mentioned, you will always carry some of the guilt and fear that generally comes with a lifetime of religious teachings.
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Bellamy argues that ultimately religion is only a damaging influence on our lives, not a positive one, and that in the future we will regret being steep in it for so long.
Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard Coldplay – The Scientist
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When two people are truly in love, break-ups, no matter if mutually agreed on or initiated by one party to another, are rarely smooth and are often tinged with regret.
It’s hard to keep the relationship, but it’d be sad for it to end. He just wants her to try this all over again because although the relationship and frustration is hard to deal with, parting ways hurts worse.
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