Coldplay’s latest music video (“Paradise”)
contains scenes of my very own Johannesburg, the Johannesburg that is within
walking distance of where I live. As a
journalist recently remarked, the elephant (that is really Chris Martin) does
not even get mugged or end up getting his unicycle stolen. “Paradise” is a pretty, catchy tune. I even find it moving, though perhaps that
has a lot to do with my patriotic little heart being swept up in the familiar
panoramas. It also contains scenes of
Coldplay’s very recent Johannesburg concert, and somewhere in those crowd shots
are multitudes of my friends, all thrilled and thoroughly enjoying themselves. I was not there, however.
This is because my appreciation of “Paradise”
(or almost any of their songs released since “Rush of Blood to the Head”, their
second album) fades when I listen to “Parachutes”, their first album. It came out when I was fourteen. My brother bought a copy when he was visiting from
London, and played it almost perpetually when he stayed with us. After he left, taking the CD with him, I went
off to the nearest Musica and bought my own.
Up until then, I had invested almost purely in compilations and
soundtracks, as many of the artists I knew about or had access to at the time only
produced one or two songs that I liked.
Coldplay was different from the start.
My favourite song on “Parachutes” back then
was “Shiver”, the second song on the album.
It is about unrequited love, rejection and yet desperate devotion and
longing. The song has an incredible
momentum, chords crashing and early stirrings of the arpeggios on which they
have come so heavily to rely. Martin’s
voice is unbelievably expressive: his falsetto is soaring and his lower notes
are occasionally breathy and always raw with emotion. It was the perfect song for an awkward yet
imaginative teenager. Its passionate
statement of constant love from afar thrilled me and while I am not so awkward
or filled with desperate love longings anymore, it is still one of my favourite
songs to sing along to.
The next songs to become my favourites came
in a pair, mainly because they were hits, but also because they were a little
literary. “Yellow” and “Trouble” are the
only two songs most Coldplay fans (or people who say they are Coldplay songs,
humph!) know from the album. “Yellow” is
unbearably sweet and borders on synaesthesia, reminding me years later of
Gatsby’s “yellow” cocktail music. “Look
at the stars, look how they shine for you and all the things that you do”. The infinite appreciation of small intimacies
are seldom so simply and beautifully expressed in popular music.
“Trouble” was always wonderfully
melancholic. The small hesitations in
the piano line and the nuanced differences they made to each repetition of the
verse give the song the power of a dramatic monologue. The sliding, mournful guitar chords at the
end still jolt me.
My next favourite, and perhaps, the eternal
favourite of my heart, is “Sparks”. It
is a slow-moving song and the gentle, almost lazy-sounding guitar chords seem
to bring a physical warmth to my innards when I hear them. When I think of the chorus, “I saw Sparks”:
my literal interpretation is of magical golden sparks showering over the
landscape against a deep, velvety night.
The metaphorical implications shift every time I listen to it. The lyrics are again, very simple but also
personal and acknowledge fallibility. “My
heart is yours, it’s you that I hold onto.
I know I was wrong, I won’t let you down, oh yeah I will yeah I will”.
The song I under-appreciated for a long
time was the opening song, “Don’t Panic”, a kind of fragment of apocalyptic
pessimism in the verses, “Bones sinking like stones, all that we’ve fought
for...” contrasted with the chorus: “We live in a beautiful world”. The melody line swells and ripples, and the
rhythm section drives the very meaning onwards.
“High
Speed” does not move me. “Spies” is a
little obscure (what is this song about?) but it is atmospheric and the
instrumentation is exciting. The
eponymous song, “Parachutes” is a beautiful sliver and “We Never Change” is relatively
abstractedly cheerful. While they may
never be favourites, they soothe me and I feel uplifted after the final chords
of the album have faded away.
“Rush of Blood to the Head” was more
polished, you can hear the band all went out and got some extra music
lessons. The emotions are still mostly
there.
It is almost everything since then that
makes me sad. I am not some hipster that
got upset when everyone else discovered “their band”. I can appreciate the waves of electronics,
catchy tunes, endlessly repeating arpeggios and hallmark physcho-babble of
their recent offerings that may have roots in interesting concepts. They cannot, however, match the raw
brilliance of the earlier songs. Rather
than feeling uplifted after hearing their swathes of feel-good pop-inspired tunes,
I feel a little depressed and like I have been offered something that feels (to me at any rate) cheap, shiny
and packaged. So I couldn’t bring myself
to go to their concert. I went home and
skyped a friend instead.
