“Yellow”: A Turning Point
Originally from London, Coldplay started their journey in 1997. Their really talented music was noticed very quickly, and the first three albums of the team exploded. Now Coldplay is considered perhaps the brightest and most promising new wave Britpop band from England. Moreover, the team’s popularity in the States is not much inferior to that in Britain, which is a huge rarity for such groups. Recently, musicians have been participating in charitable events a lot and showing healthy social activity (). The group consists of four members: Chris Martin – vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar, harmonica; Jonny Buckland – electric guitar, backing vocals; Guy Berryman – bass guitar, synthesizer, acoustic guitar, harmonica, backing vocals; Will Champion – drums, keyboards, backing vocals.
Having started playing in the fall of 1996, Coldplay achieved real success in the world only in 2000, after the release of their second single “Yellow” from the album Parachutes, which burst into the top of all charts in Great Britain and the United States. Coldplay’s albums have sold over 30 million copies by April 2007.
In Coldplay’s documentary A Head Full Of Dreams, Chris Martin, a spotty teenager with braces, looks at the camera and jokes that his band “The Coldplay” is set for sky-high success. He says: “It’s now 26 June 1998, and by 26 June 2002, The Coldplay will be known all over, man. Don’t you forget it. Massive! Absolutely huge!” (). Four years later, almost the same day, Coldplay headlined Glastonbury.
Coldplay, of course, fulfilled Martin’s naive promise. Each of their eight albums reached number one in the UK. They have sold over 75 million records, won countless awards, including nine British and seven Grammys, and have collaborated with some of the world’s biggest pop stars, from Noel Gallagher to Rihanna and Beyoncé. But before that, there was a simple song called Yellow. It was their ticket to superstars.
Lyrics Analysis
It was all yellow
“It’s more of a feeling than a meaning”
Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along, I wrote a song for you, and all the things you do. And it was called, “Yellow”
I swam across, I jumped across for you, Oh, what a thing to do! ‘Cause you were all yellow.
I drew a line, I drew a line for you. Oh, what a thing to do! And it was all yellow
For you I’d bleed myself dry
The phrase “It was all yellow,” interpreted in any way convenient for the listener, referring to the stars or the radiance emitted from the beloved, seems to be intentionally ambiguous. Its vagueness can be seen as universal romanticism. The lyrics convey a profound idea of how much a person can be in love and, at the same time, how important support is. Besides, the song provides an opportunity to be clear about the most intimate thing: the deepest self. On the Howard Stern Show in 2011, Chris Martin said, “It’s more of a feeling than a meaning” ().
In the first verse, the listener can understand that the narrator admires the person they are singing for, and she is the center of their universe. The stars shine for this person and, at the same time, lighten the narrator’s world. The song is a way for the narrator to increase the person’s confidence and help let go of the insecurities and low self-esteem.
In the second verse, the narrator can hear the narrator talking about their deeds for the girl they love. These lyrics show that they are actually ready to do anything for this love. Most importantly, they “drew the lines” for her, i.e., set boundaries in their relationship and beyond them. To reiterate how much the girl means to the narrator, the lines “For you I’d bleed myself dry” come further in the second chorus.
Works Cited
Coldplay. A Head Full of Dreams. 2015.
O’Brien, Phil. Coldplay: Look at the Stars. Plexus Pub, 2004.
Power, Ed. “They Were a Little Bit Naff” – How Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ Altered the Course of 21st-Century Rock Music. The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 2020.