Coldplay “Viva La Vida”

I’ve always found it a funny phenomenon when a songwriter doesn’t want to explain his/her song.

I mean, I guess I understand that you don’t want the media to reduce a complex thought to some simple copy. Or you don’t want to assign a definitive meaning to something that might be abstract enough that the interpretation of the song varies from listener to listener.

But some artists are really, almost hostile, to the question.

I recall that Chris Martin of Coldplay got so frustrated with a particular interviewer, because he’d been asked, probably for the 10,000 time, if he were writing songs about parenthood, now that he’s a parent.

I don’t have the interview handy, to quote directly, but he basically said that his songwriting was informed by lots of things and to think that just because he is now a parent, that that’s what he was writing about, is asinine.

That being said . . .

“Viva La Vida” came out around the time I became a parent, and I have always thought this tune was about being a father.

I used to rule the world,
Seas would rise when I gave the world.
Now in the morning I sleep alone,
Sweep the streets I used to roam.

He sings about how he was formerly the master of his universe, and now he is on the lowest rung.

He may not have written it about being a parent, but I have to say, at the time it came out, it struck a paternal chord with me, as I was going through the emotions of suddenly being the least important person living in my home, when formerly I was the most important (and only) person in my life.

So I don’t know. Chris? Did I get it right? Is that what this one is about?