Charlemagne Fenton
Against Coldplay
Well, not Coldplay per se (although I really wouldn’t mind), but mainly any thought, hope, or dream that their music might be deemed “Christian.” While their latest tune and iPod commercial “Viva La Vida” contains a bounty of lyrics that seem to be Christian references, I’m not convinced the song has a “Christian message” in either content or form; we might even go a bit further and say that to claim a “Christian message” for that song would be nothing but the end of the world as we know it. Entirely.
When we consider Coldplay’s latest revolutionary (and faux-indie) look, evident in both their costume and album art, it seems quite clear that they’re bent on being seen as important. And to be “important” these days means being anti-globalist, anti-war, anti-Republican, and so on – which is fine, my friend, if you’re into that kind of thing – but I beg of you, Coldplay, don’t insult your listeners’ intelligence! It’s (almost) admirable that Chris Martin’s songwriting has matured to the point that he can now refer to subjects as profoundly deeply learned as “Jerusalem bells” and “Roman cavalry choirs,” but what people have been calling his “subtle” imagery and wordplay is in reality just sloppy writing. Would a truly subtle writer have to dress up as a revolutionary soldier in order to get his point across? Yeah, didn’t catch that reference to the Crusades, did ya? Didn’t see how much I really sympathize with poor soldiers forced into fighting? Well, here you go! Can’t miss it now! (I mean, even Bono has enough respect for his listeners and himself to wear something that complements his skin tone.)
“Viva La Vida” purports to be a song from the perspective of a crusading king who falls from power and now looks back at his reign with regret. If that were all, I’d settle for being no worse (better?) than indifferent towards the song. But what makes “Viva” so insidious is that Martin, after he puts us in the ruined king’s shoes, drops the final blade, singing: “for some reason I can’t explain / I know Saint Peter won’t call my name.” This is a king who won’t be receiving a chance for forgiveness.
Which comes as no surprise. The entire album, after all, is saturated with lyrics targeting the American religious right. Another song, “Violet Hill,” this time from the perspective of a soldier kept in the dark by the authorities, goes after Fox News – of all things! – in its verses about “a long and dark December” when “the future’s architectured [architectured? Are you kidding me?!?] / By a carnival of idiots on show” and when “the banks became cathedrals / and the Fox became God.” (I know, I know, but ridiculous as the allusion seems, what’s even more absurd is Chris Martin patting himself on the back for coming up with it.) And the king in “Viva La Vida” was “just a puppet on a lonely string.” In this day and age, any reference to a leader as a puppet is loaded: you only have to think of V for Vendetta to realize how obvious Coldplay’s Bush-targeting is.
There are two problems with this: one of content and one of form. First, Coldplay, for all their anti-war, human-loving posturing on the album, reserves no mercy for world leaders like Bush. We are all about love, yes, but not about forgiveness, or even praying for forgiveness. As far as we’re concerned, the Bush administration can languish in hell for all eternity! Giggle giggle. This is not only not the love Christ taught us: it’s also downright disturbing. Second, this is nothing new. You need to get out of the house more often, Coldplay, if you think comparing the Bush administration to the Crusades is an original analogy. And we’ve known how horrible Fox News is for years now, thank you very much. Ever hear of Stephen Colbert?
It’s the latter problem that has been plaguing Coldplay for their entire career, that is the reason we shouldn’t claim the song as “Christian”: their propensity for cliché. No better song demonstrates this than “Viva,” moreover. Poetically, the song is a hodge-podge of references and images that cohere only in the fact that they’re all clichés: “In the morning I sleep alone”? “I used to roll the dice”? “pillars of salt” and “pillars of sand”? “my sword and shield”? “missionaries in a foreign field”? shattered windows and the sound of drums”? “my head on a silver plate”? And the clincher: “just a puppet on a lonely string”?!
Coldplay, come on! You can’t even claim that you took the clichés and made them your own because all you did was line them up with some lazy, uninspired rhymes: in the second verse you have “sing” / “king” followed immediately afterward in the chorus by “ringing” / “singing”, and let’s not even mention the horror of your “shield”/”field” rhyme. I mean, seriously, how many times can you drop the ball in one song?
In the end, there’s barely any good left in the song once you realize how cheap it is in both its philosophy and its art. And a song this bereft of true love and true beauty is of no true good to the Church.
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August 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Seems a bit scathing, but the song does kind of suck. It seems to me like they just had a certain opinion they wanted to get across, and then went way over the top expressing it.
Since they’re not claiming to be writing “Christian” lyrics, I’m not too perturbed about the song’s sanctity or anything like that. I get frustrated when people try to claim music as being “Christian” or not. I don’t really see the importance of making that distinction. If every song perfectly embodied Christian theology, it would be even more cliché than this song (which is why I’m not particularly keen on “Christian” music… it mostly sounds cliché to me). Good article.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Thank you for writing this! At first, I really liked the song because of its catchy/boppy sound and sing-along lyrics [yes, I’ve sung and played it on the piano; like most Coldplay songs the chord progression is very easy and predictable]. After reading your thoughts here, though, I think you rightly criticize the endless clichés and the sub-par songwriting.
But I would say that you can re-cast the ideas in some of the “Viva la Vida” songs in a Christian light – sometimes. For example, in the song(s) “Lost!/Lost?” (haha, I still don’t know why the song appears twice in two forms) can be conceived as a person’s tireless journey through life with numerous idols and failed attempts to find meaning. For example, “waiting ’til the shine wears off” could mean that while idols can shine and satisfy for a time, they ultimately lose their initial promise of fulfillment. Then the person feels lost and disoriented. She learns that there’s a disturbing temporality to life, and she is not always at the center of the universe, for “along may come a bigger one.”
October 17th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Isn’t it Roman Catholic choirs are singing. I dont know of any horse riding choirs during the crusades or otherwise!
October 18th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Nope, it’s definitely Roman cavalry choirs. I believe “Jerusalem bells” is the reference to the crusades in the chorus, and that “Roman calvary choirs” is a reference to, well, the Roman cavalry.
As to horse-riding choirs…you’ll have to take that up with Chris Martin. It’s not poor Charlemagne’s fault that the man makes no sense.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I’ll just add a brief comment: I like the album and the song (Viva La Vida). On Roman cavalry choirs: probably an allusion to dead soldiers singing/pleading before the gates of heaven (they’re mostly pagans or pre-Christian so they can’t get in). Just some food for thought.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
[...] Beck. Is he not the anti-Coldplay for which we have been waiting? Is not Modern Guilt the absolute antithesis of Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends? And we [...]
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
On “complementing skin tone…”
You know, Charlemagne, Bono dressed up as Macphisto, one of the devils (make up and all) from The Screwtape Letters for some series of concerts somewhere in his past.
love ezra
February 10th, 2009 at 1:16 am
As Noel Coward noted in his play, Private Lives, “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.” While I recognize this website is devoted to Christian thought at Cal Berkeley (whatever that may be), your hopeful attempt to derive some kind of Christian message in this song is extraordinarily strained and pathetic. Why bother at all? Does Christianity really need all the songs it can get? Or have you forgotten that pop music is just that, popular? As for the somewhat hackneyed songwriting, English is a hard language in which to rhyme without the result sounding a bit simplistic. Perhaps someone needs to leave the People’s Republic of Berkeley a bit more often.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
What “hopeful attempt to derive some kind of Christian message in this song” are you talking about?
Lest you forget, the solution to trite rhyme is not to rhyme. The solution to trite songs is not to sing in the first place. Nobody’s forcing Chris Martin to sing in a language he can’t handle. The world would profit from more silence.
(Yet do trolls even read what’s actually written? Oh, woe woe woe. What is this world coming to, Alcuin? We long for the good old days.)
February 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Bebe, it seems to me that Alcuin is more criticizing mainstream Christian believers who want to draw a Christian message from the music. While I agree that pop music is, on the whole, rather vapid and meaningless, that doesn’t exclude moral values from being expressed in popular songs that secular people write. Heathens may not know they are expressing the heart of God when they write something “true”, but they are none the less expressing the heart of God. Godly truth will shine through no matter who says it.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
The world is coming to its end as always, sire. For my part, I long for the first days. Or the last.
Drew, I believe your comment addresses the arguments of three different people (excluding the venerable Bebe, who is in error, not argument). Charlemagne is criticizing those who would draw a Christian message from Viva La Vida. Your opinion seems to echo my post somewhat, which is written as a dialogue between myself and my intellectual sparring partner, Sophie.
As to the assertion, “Godly truth will shine through no matter who says it,” my reply is, “of course it will.” Truth always wins eventually: this goes without saying. (But of course, I had to write a whole post saying it.) But some things, before the malleus Dei smashes them into Truth, are truer than others. Some things are more beautiful than others. And these truer, more beautiful things are better for us. Criticism is a useful pursuit for this reason.
However, I am not sure, dread lord, that I agree with your solution. I believe too much in the wisdom of talk to ever say that silence is the final answer. By all means let Chris Martin sing. May we hear his song, and respond whole-heartedly: critically.
As you have argued and as the venerable Bebe has put it, the attempt to put a Christian gloss on Coldplay’s music is “extraordinarily strained and pathetic.” The label “Christian” should not be Coldplay’s sword and shield, let alone their missionary in the foreign field of evangelical culture. Martin must be a puppet on a lonely string, for how can we love him if we cannot single him out and know him for what he is?
February 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
We are pleased the NY Times agrees with us:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/arts/music/05pare.html
February 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Oh dear. I thought the original review of the song was in jest (or so I found it when first I read it). Clearly anyone can see that the reviewer does not like this unlovely song with its uninspired lyrics. I suppose when one discusses taste, for which there is no accounting, one man’s celestial “Liebestod” is another’s infernal “Horst Wessel Lied.” I’m not sure why any song should be of “good” to the Christian Church (q.v., the peroration sentence in the review), since one might wish to avoid Aquinan/Lutheran issues of merit in evaluating a mere popular ditty. Moreover, the tension inherent in what constitutes “good” in any song suggests to me the old Maoist fight between art’s for art’s sake and a didactic utility for art. Conceding that perhaps Coldplay’s song is not art in the churchly sense, I have been endlessly amused by the heated controversy it has generated amongst the Christian faithful. In grad school my Church group used two songs, “Every Breath You Take” of The Police and “Kyrie Eleison” by Mr. Mister, during services. One could view these two songs similarly as tedious as “Viva La Vida” for they also motivated the susceptible to impute all sorts of religious imagery (don’t they still call that “reading in” at Cal?), possessed banal rhymes and cliches, and were played ad nauseum on the radio stations. Yet I recall the band, Mr. Mister, specifically denied any religious motivations in writing its song. One cannot seriously expect Chris Martin to do such a thing (far better to lament on the way to the bank), though it be profoundly hoped for. At least by the reviewer, I sense.
Kind thanks to Mr. O’Kane for his assertion of godly truth existing everywhere and always: I did enjoy the archaic usage of “heathens.” Mr. Davidson seems to paraphrase Philippians 4:8 in his third paragraph as a tool of criticism, although one notes that Paul himself wrote with no comparative usage regarding things true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report. Sometimes we of the Christian sect can be so unattractive in our certainty of whatsoever things are true: even Jesus asked us to give appropriately at the office or at the pew.
Ever since a teacher friend of mine at Cal mentioned this site to me, often have I returned merely to read the contents of this site, and never until now to comment on them. It is right and meet to remain a reader, I think.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I personally don’t think that anyone has touched on the correct meaning of Cold Play’s song Viva La Vida yet. They refer to Roman Catholic Choirs singing not Roman Cavalry Choirs singing. This song is about how “some people”, including Coldplay it would seem think that the Catholic Church has been lying to its followers and the world for centuries and centuries and from the tone of this song I understand that Coldplay feels that this will come to an end in the future. (The truth remains to be seen.) Anyway, the “V” that is so apparent in the video on Chris Martin’s guitar and shirt is reminiscent of “V” in The DaVinci Code - go back and watch the movie for further clarification. The question about “who ever wanted to be king” refers to Jesus Christ, and the song has a foreboding air about it, eventhough, it is thoroughly entrenched in history (the Crusades, Joan of Arc, etc.). The sword and shield refer to the Knights Templar. The missionaries in foreign fields refer to the missionaries that were sent out, throughout history, by the Catholic Church to the 4 corners of the world in an attempt to convert the masses to Catholocism. This is what I get from this song.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I am not against Coldplay! Au contraire. I actually enjoy the song, especially the music. However, I would love to hear Chris Martin’s explanation of the meaning of the song, or, at least, the motivation behind it. He seems to be very “closed mouthed” about the whole thing, which leads me to question one heck of alot! There are other symbolic indicators in the background scenary, more specifically in the clouds, which you really have to look for, but once you see them you can’t help but see them each and every time afterward. This symbolism hints at something ancient, which I believe is the crux of the song.