Coldplay – "Viva la Vida" (2008)

For some reason I can't explain

I know Saint Peter won’t call my name

It is possible that the reason that St. Peter won’t be calling Chris Martin’s name because he and his mates lifted the most memorable chord progression in “Viva la Vida” from Joe Satriani’s 2004 track, “If I Could Fly.”  (Satriani sued Coldplay for copyright infringement, but the case settled before it went to trial.)

There’s another reason for St. Peter to bar the door to heaven to Coldplay: the lyrics to “Viva la Vida” are as bad as any you’ll ever hear in a popular song.

Whoever wrote those – the song is credited to all four Coldplay members – has served up a heapin’ helpin’ of historical and religious references and imagery that makes no sense whatsoever.  (Little known fact: when Macbeth spoke of “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” he was referring to “Viva la Vida.”)

Paltrow and Martin split in 2014

Martin met actress Gwyneth Paltrow at a Coldplay concert in 2002.  (He was 25, and she was four and a half years older.)  The couple were married the next year.

Martin crushed it for over ten years before the couple separated in 2014.  Currently he’s crushing Annabelle Wallis, an English actress who is the niece of actor Richard Harris, whose recording of “MacArthur Park” may be the greatest vocal performance of all time.

Annabelle Wallis

PETA named Martin the “World’s Sexiest Vegetarian” in 2005.  But it seems that he went back to eating meat after his conscious uncoupling from Paltrow.

Martin is a very brown-eyed fellow, as his thoughts on religion show. 

In a 2008 interview he said, "I'm always trying to work out what 'He' or 'She' is. I don't know if it's Allah or Jesus or Mohammed or Zeus. But I'd go for Zeus."  Later, he texted that he was an "all-theist,” a word of his invention meaning that he believes in "everything.”  (Isn’t believing in everything really the same as believing in nothing?)

“Viva la Vida” was a huge hit for Coldplay in 2008.  It reached #1 on the pop charts in both the United States and the UK, and won the “Song of the Year” Grammy.  Over six million copies of the song were sold in the U.S. alone. 

I have a feeling “Viva la Vida” will be one of the songs Coldplay plays when they take the stage at the 50th Super Bowl later tonight.  

Here’s the “Viva la Vida” music video, which has been viewed over 239,000,000 times:

Click below to buy “Viva la Vida”: