The Scientist by Coldplay
Coldplay is one of the familiar British bands that directly follows the general direction of their genre’s national predecessor, the Beatles, in terms of music style. But unlike their contemporary Oasis emphasizing rebellious free-thinking spirit, Coldplay exudes an atmosphere of gloom and serenity. Their music is often described as “blue melody”, evoking “meditation” as an appropriate activity when listening to their songs.
One of the songs that describe their disposition is The Scientist. Its melody seemed taken straight out of the funeral songs due to its implied despondency. There is a reason why this music seemed to sound appropriate theme for burial services. However, the lyrics and the music video may not be necessarily on the right page in terms of the intensity of the grief, or the circumstance surrounding the sad harmony that gave life to it.
“Questions of science… Science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.” These lines, interpreted in face value, describes the nagging thoughts of an overworked scientist and his ongoing problems in his relationship. “Nobody said it would be this hard. I’m going back to the start.” The lines of the main lyrics describe this aforementioned scientist’s intense desire to start all over again in this crumbling relationship. Not much directly aligned to memorials, isn’t it? But wait till you see the music video…
If one should derive meanings from the music video, the funeral theme is nothing short of extremely painful. After all, the female character featured has just died from a brutal vehicular impact. The slow rewinding of the scene right after the impact seems to describe the anguish of the male character who wept for his beloved. He was trying to rewind those last tragic seconds in his thoughts in futile attempts to prevent that accident from happening. The music video seems to describe the first few stages of grief – denial, and anger.
Anyone who has lost their loved ones in this way knows that no amount of consolation gifts (e.g. funeral flowers) can bring solace. The initial stages of grieving always pose an unpleasant prognosis. Will I ever heal? This is the usual painful sentiment that barely describes how much anguish an individual is dealing. And if one should borrow straight from the lines of the song, they’d beg in hopeless anguish,“Tell me you love me. Come back and haunt me.”
