One of my favorite songs from when I was a teenager / early adult was by a band I think is probably still pretty well known and popular: Coldplay.

Being a quite short hidden track at the end of the phenomenal first album Parachutes, the song is the same as this post. But let us back up a bit first because when you get into this album and get this point we should talk about a couple of other songs at least in the album to get to what I think is the full meaning of the last song.

The singer for Coldplay, a gentleman named Chris Martin, started writing songs several years before with his band mate Jonny Buckland in 1996 or 97 well before 2000 when they released their first full album to international acclaim. They had wanted to start a band their first year in University College London, and over the next few months they added their bassist Guy Berryman. At this point they started recording their first singles without a drummer but finally they found their drummer in another local musician named Will Champion who quickly put them into live playing merely a week after joining the band.

Credited on the albums all together as writers, it is impossible for me to find who was primarily responsible for the first album’s lyrics, but there seems to be a thoroughfare between several songs on the first album. The theme that seems to come through to me about it was something that I was always worried about myself in my teenage years. The idea of feeling like you could not make up for the fact that you did something so damning to those around you that they give up on you and you must then face the world alone.

I would guess that this type of feeling would be quite common for folks to feel in their teenage years, but I write about it because of my lifelong struggle with depression which truly had kicked into overdrive as I was a teenager. Being autistic (originally known as Asperger’s Autism and now Autism Spectrum Disorder level 1), and having a constant struggle to connect with people around me it felt like I was destined to be alone. I constantly looked for reasons to hope life would be better as time passed. It is amazing with my home life (perhaps a post about that at some other point..) that I ever made it to this point in my life. I can see multiple times in my teenage years I should have been dead many times over. People who know me know I didn’t have an issue with drugs, or alcohol. I wasn’t addicted to anything during my earlier life than trying to figure out a way forward without pain and feeling lost. But with a father that was as abusive as mine had been most of my life… I am still surprised I’ve gotten as far as I have today.

Years of therapy, and working through my issues, and great medication for me — I feel like I am finally on the other side of those types of feelings these days, but there are still days that those feelings can creep in. I have gone through having my own children, a divorce, remarriage.. it is so easy to slip back into those self destructive self doubt mantras staying in my head. Because of one of those moments recently this album came front and center of my own mind. So now that I have buttered you up with some lovely ways that I’ve been strange most of my life.. lets get back to the music I think.

So the album’s overall theme I would think I’ve talked about: Screwing up, losing those around you, and being alone. Is every song that way? No. But so many of the songs talk about:
1) Not being noticed
2) Changing for others because you felt like it was the only way to be accepted
3) Anxiety of the waking world having strangers or lack of peace
4) Driving people away and trying to bring them back
5) Holding on to people in unhealthy ways
6) Promising more of yourself than you can possibly give without detriment to yourself

Many albums I feel like there is almost this character being brought to bare in the music who is going through everything. Sometimes these characters get easy to understand names like Maria in the Counting Crows music that mentions her, or Marlena in the song by The Wallflowers called “Three Marlenas”. I know that you could just say that it is Chris singing to us about himself during the album or for those of us who really went through similar feelings or thoughts at that time in our life that the album came out.. you could just sub yourself in for every song that said ‘I’ or ‘we never..’ etc. I take the opinion that it is a separate character that is going through these things as the album happens that I can feel empathy for as their feelings mirror my own. Because of that I think the album seems to reflect my own life in so many ways. Getting to the end of the album starts synthesizing these different pieces as the album went along and the character becomes more of an every person that we can all empathize with as things change or go against what we are looking for.

Before the hidden track on the album, the song that is played beforehand is known as ‘Everything’s Not Lost’. This song seems to combine everything in the album so far, the hero is up against the wall — they wake up and start counting up what has gone well and not gone well in their life — the demons. They then start wondering that even with them on their shoulders ‘the good demons’ while trying to drive the ‘other’ ones away is that the way. I feel like as the next lines play he speaks to himself asking if they specifically feel neglected. Ending the second stanza with; “Hoping everything’s not lost,” becomes the diametrically opposed point of view of watching all of the terrible that they keep up with and watch how those demons continue to stay with them. Asking in the middle of the song’s lyrics, “Cause if you ever feel neglected, and you think that all is lost,” which then filters straight into the hidden song which I think is the most important part of the entire album in the end as it sums up what you can do when something isn’t ‘right’ and when you are worried about what you have done to those that feel wronged. Instead of counting up all of the problems that you have potentially caused, and what you have done wrong; understand what happened, and work towards fixing it. Find the way to cope; sing it out, find your path out of the spiral you find yourself in, the demons while seen don’t have to be held on to, and finally sometimes it is what you’ve not tried before that makes all the difference in those relationships.

The song ends and the hidden track begins shortly afterwards with, “Now I never meant to do you wrong, that’s what I came here to say. But if I was wrong, then I am sorry, I don’t let it stand in our way. Cause my head just aches when I think of the things that I shouldn’t have done. But life is worth living, we all know, And I don’t want to live it alone.” This character realizing that might have actually screwed up and that they have remorse that they realize has come to them as they think about their demons… it leads them to want to fix it because the fear that they have of living alone and not having that important part of their life keeps them in pain and they have to do what is required to fix the situation. Because life is for living, and we all know that it is hard to do alone, we work to find those that make us feel like it is easier to face reality with them.

At least that is what I get out of the album and what is going on throughout the story of it. Maybe a bit rambled garbled mess but maybe also a different way to take in some of the first album. Being upset, and knowing that you are causing harm to others, but after the fog lifts (or you climb out of the hole you fell into perhaps) knowing you have to do something about it. You have to push yourself out of the comfort zone sometimes to build back the relationship you damaged. You have to take that ownership, and sometimes it can be extremely hard. But also, we have to learn the wisdom of what ‘demons’ are worth keeping in our lives, and which ones we have to simply let go. So I challenge you if you read this — try to make amends for something you know you have done. Even if you have to start small be the change you want to see around you. Take that ownership for yourself, and try to fix the situation that was caused. It can be a struggle to get that out there for you but if its a thing you can do — perhaps coming out the other side with a better self image will also help you develop further.

Because life is for living, and we don’t wanna have to live it alone, or perhaps — we don’t want to live it in the space we created for only ourselves and having others makes it a bit more bearable,
-Phil