The Philippine Online Chronicles

As critic Terry Eagleton observes in his essay series on how to read a poem, “Poetry holds conflicting attitudes together, without necessarily resolving them.” And really, what could be more contradictory than a multimillionaire rock star apparently channeling the viewpoint of a fallen warrior king? That’s the basic premise of Coldplay’s bombastic pop anthem “Viva La Vida”, written by singer and main lyricist Chris Martin.

However, before we can discuss Martin’s verses on their own literary merit, let’s first consider the song itself, as a cultural product. It was the second single from Coldplay’s 2008 album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. Upon its release, fans and critics alike took note of the grandiose quality of the track, with its prominent use of a string section arranged by violinist Davide Rossi.

Producer Brian Eno confers a sense of baroque pop orchestration to the recording. And Martin himself remarked that its title – which means “Long Live Life” in Spanish – is homage to a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whom the singer admired for her tireless optimism.  Blogs and discussion forums were abuzz with speculation about the meaning of the song, with its ample use of Biblical imagery.

And yet for all of its pomp and circumstance, “Viva La Vida” is unmistakably a product; not just the digital recording but even the composition itself: the music and lyrics. Aptly, it has since been consumed in a variety of contexts: as the band’s highest charting single; as Song of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards in 2009; as the anthem of Spanish football club FC Barcelona, during the 2008-09 season; as part of Apple Inc.'s iPod + iTunes ad campaign. All of this begs the question: does this hyper-commercial context take away from the song’s value as poetry?

I would heartily disagree. Once again, Eagleton explains it more articulately than I could ever hope to: “Poetry puts the law of noncontradiction into suspension ... It is language liberated from the actual and sent out on a spree. Why should language conform itself obediently to reality? Why shouldn’t it create it instead?” And so the reality created by Martin’s verses exists as a result of – but distinct from – the material and social circumstances that willed it into existence.

With the opening verse, Martin quickly establishes the perspective of a deposed monarch:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

The tone seems humble and contrite. Yet there’s a pervasive sense of lament for the speaker’s erstwhile majesty.

But just how legitimate was this authority? The next verse suggests that it was one upheld by chance (I used to roll the dice) and terror (Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes). Perhaps expectedly, the ruler’s comeuppance has been swift and unmerciful:

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me

And several verses later:

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate

Clearly, this king has earned the wrath of some former subjects. But is this a case of a valid mass uprising, or an insurrection by restive coup plotters? The answer may lie in the song’s use of biblical imagery.

There are multiple references to Judeo-Christian history throughout “Viva La Vida”, from “Jerusalem bells” and “Roman Cavalry”, to “missionaries in a foreign field”. But perhaps the most explicitly scriptural of these comes from the refrain:

For some reason I can’t explain
I know Saint Peter won’t call my name

This references the Bible passage Matthew 16:19, in which Jesus grants Peter authority over the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, permitting or denying admission to human souls. Here is a ruler who has not only been overthrown by his people, but claims to “know” that his behavior won’t pass muster in divine judgment. And yet he is at a loss to rationalize exactly why he’s transgressed against God and country.

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Viva La Vida (CapitolMusic)

At this point, I would dare suggest that the speaker – for all his individual warrior posturing – may not have recognized the power dynamics of the system he was complicit in, even as his conscience felt the immorality of his acts. (A variation on what philosopher Hannah Arendt calls “the banality of evil”, perhaps?) The speaker knows that he does wrong but is unable to recognize its root causes because he’s so entrenched within the institutions that enable his wrongdoings, first as master and now as servant. Or maybe that’s just me, projecting my own worldview onto the song, as an affluent pop critic from a "developing" country? But as Eagleton reminds us: “There are so many things you can have in poems that you can’t have in real life – a smile without a cat, a cathedral built of marzipan, a square triangle, a boy who is also a banana – poetry testifies in its wealth of possibilities to the fact of human freedom.”  Is the idea of a penitent – if not quite enlightened – member of the ruling elite really so farfetched?

And so we turn to “real life” for possible interpretations. Any listener who’s remotely familiar with Coldplay’s career would be aware that Martin is a prominent supporter of economic justice initiatives in developing countries, including Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. In fact, he personally traveled to Ghana and Haiti to witness its projects, first hand.

Along the way, it’s not hard to imagine that he may have interacted directly with some of the key players of world trade: executives, government ministers, technocrats, and the like. It may be that Martin is offering humanist sympathy with these influential rulers of the industrialized First World, even as he casts his lot with the oppressed of the so-called ‘global south’. After all, Martin is still an extremely wealthy rock star, no matter where his stated allegiances lie.

If one were so privileged to make it past Chris Martin’s entourage of handlers, security, and label representatives, one might attempt to ask him what he means. That’s exactly what Sylvia Patterson of Q magazine did, in reference to the lyric about St. Peter. And here’s what Martin had to say:

"It's about ... You're not on the list. I was a naughty boy. It's always fascinated me, that idea of finishing your life and then being analyzed on it. And this idea runs throughout most religions. That's why people blow up buildings. Because they think they're going to get lots of virgins. I always feel like saying, ‘Just join a band.’”

So there you have it! The seeming profundity of a poetic turn of phrase now reduced to a pithy soundbyte about the state of global politics after 9/11.

Of course, we don’t need to accept that explanation. Just as Eagleton claims that we shouldn’t have to accept William Blake’s intended view of the titular beast from his seminal poem, Tyger. That’s because poetry “is a matter of knack and intuition, of being inside language, rather than calculatedly manipulating it.”

Chris Martin the Pop Icon is deploying lyrics and quips as weapons, “calculatedly manipulating” language in the service of his advocacies, political beliefs, and ultimately, his bank account. But Chris Martin the Poet writes from “inside language”, with an appreciation for the quirks, nuances, and contradictions that define human experience. The poetry of “Viva La Vida” succeeds at transcending its commercial origins, for some reason I can’t explain.

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