Killers – "Mr. Brightside" (2003)

Now they’re goin’ to bed

And my stomach is sick

And it’s all in my head

Unless you spent July in a coma, I’m sure you’ve heard about the married CEO of a Massachusetts tech company who took his company’s HR director to a Coldplay concert and got caught canoodling with her on the stadium “kiss cam.”

You do know that “to canoodle” means “to engage in amorous embracing, caressing, and kissing,” don’t you?  I find it very interesting that almost every news account about the incident that I’ve read uses “canoodling” to describe what the naughty couple were up to when the “kiss cam” outed them.

Oops!

By the way, no one knows for sure where the word “canoodle” – which first appeared in print in 1859 – came from.

Likewise, no one knows for sure how much the CEO’s little indiscretion is going to cost him.  But his net worth is estimated at between $50 million and $70 million, and Massachusetts law provides for a 50-50 split in most divorces.  So he will likely have to sign over tens of millions of dollars to his wife.

That’s some pretty expensive canoodling – I hope it was worth it.

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Speaking of losing tens of millions of dollars . . .

A few days after the Coldplay kiss cam story broke, CBS announced that it had decided to cancel Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.  The show was apparently losing something on the order of $40 million annually, so the decision comes as no great surprise.    

Some wag tweeted this after the CBS decision became public:

When Stephen Colbert goes off the air, what will husbands who are staying up late waiting for their wife to get home safely from her boyfriend’s house watch?

One of the comments posted in response to that tweet worked the Coldplay incident into the conversation:

“Honey, just got home from the Coldplay concert.  Is Colbert over yet?”

Several other commenters offered smart-ass suggestions concerning shows that Colbert fans could watch once the Late Show was off the air.  Here’s one:

They can watch PBS . . . oh wait!

Another suggestion alluded to the relative maturity of the Late Show audience:

Reruns of “Murder She Wrote” and “Golden Girls.”

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Click here to watch the “Mr. Brightside” official music video.  The director got the idea for that video after dropping acid and watching the 2001 Moulin Rouge film.  (JUST KIDDING, Sophie Muller – DON’T SUE ME!)

The video depicts a love triangle involving characters portrayed by Brandon Flowers, Eric Roberts, and Izabella Miko.

Flowers is the lead singer and primary songwriter of the Killers.

Roberts has appeared in dozens of movies and a number of TV series but   is best known for being the older brother of Julia Roberts.

Miko is a Polish actress and dancer whose career peaked when she appeared in the 2000 movie, Coyote Ugly.  Click here if you’d like to buy one of her sustainable “EkoMiko” candles.

Click here to buy “Mr. Brightside” from Amazon.

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”: