"Yellow" is still your most famous song. How did you write it?
It's nice to try and write without knowing what you're doing. So I had this guitar tuned in some strange way to play another song actually called "Shiver," which was supposed to be our first big hit single. And we were in Wales, recording it. And what sort of frightens me is, it was just a complete accident. I was waiting around, and our producer, Ken, was talking about how beautiful it was outside because of the stars. And then while I was waiting to do a take at the guitar, I was just messing around: [sings] "Look at the stars / Look, they shine for you / They were all yellow."
So you had just that line, that melody.
Yeah, then I ran - if I have a problem with a chorus, I like to go into the men's room, 'cause the echo is nice. Doesnt smell so great, so you need to write it quickly, get out of there. I wrote the chorus, then I showed it to Jonny. He started coming up with all this bendy guitar stuff - and then I thought, "OK, that's that, then."
The lyrics of that song express something that seems evry central to you, a sort of sense of awe about the beauty of the world.
Well, it is central to me, 'cause otherwise, without hope, what is there? Without wonder, without awe?
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Overall, do you like your job?
Are you joking? I fucking die for it. I just cant believe I've got it. And so as long as I've got it, we're going to try and be the best possible. For all the insecurity and everything, there's an amazing amount of drive, you know? We just don't want to stop until we've done something that's really good. You've got to be driven. Otherwise, what's the point of being alive?
When they make the Coldplay biopic, what should the opening scene be?
Probably the assassination and subsequent tribute concert.
No, really.
What? We would open with Barbra Streisand singing "Yellow" at Madison Square Garden and joined by Mariah Carey, with a great big picture of us in the background, and a big question mark of how that ferry we were on actually got sunk. That's how I would open it.
How would you end it?
I would end it with a massive orgy, because I think audiences would dig that.
And what would your obituary say?
There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where they get the text of an obituary wrong, and instead of saying "beloved aunt," it says "beloved cunt." And I always think that would kind of sum up the two sides of my life, the two sides of the coin. I'd like that.
- Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone issue 1055, June 26 2008
that marks the end of the interview. I know he is violent, has a knack naming his baby after a fruit, and writes great songs, but i never knew Chris Martin had it in him to be hilariously funny. Now I know. "Look at the stars..."
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