Eighteen years can go by just like that, apparently. It was 2008 that Coldplay released Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. I was 13, a full functioning human being. A naïve one, but existing nonetheless. I was aware of my surroundings and knew my right from wrong. And I remember, very clearly, ‘Violet Hill’ being the new video, the new single by the band as if it were a couple weeks ago. When I saw/heard the tune, I was into it from the jump. The song, I think, is still the coolest one the band have ever done. If there was a contest for coolest Coldplay song, ‘Violet Hill’ should win it hands down. I was pretty conscious for the X&Y era. ‘Speed of Sound’, ‘Fix You’, ‘The Hardest Part’, although I have no kind of beef with those tunes, you could say they’re very stereotypically Coldplay. No one but Coldplay could have written and performed those songs. What struck me about ‘Violet Hill’ those first times hearing it was how un-Coldplay it sounded. Even today, it can sometimes surprise me that it’s Coldplay I’m listening to when ‘Violet Hill’ gets to playing in the shuffled playlist. It’s almost experimental by their standards. It was the first Coldplay song that got me excited for an upcoming release of theirs.

I’m trying to think if there’s another song of Coldplay’s that I consider better than ‘Violet Hill’, and I’ve gotta say, I don’t think there is a song by them that I personally enjoy more. I kind of like everything about it. Except for that “My nerves are poles that unfroze” lyric. The phrasing always felt a little strange to me. Is ‘unfroze’ a word used on a regular basis? I don’t know. Other than that, I think Chris Martin’s never sounded better vocal-wise. Just the tone of it. Maybe it’s the microphone he was using, the production, the studio he was in. Whatever it was, it helped. The “ba-dam ba-dam” guitar riff that happens during the verses are very cool. “Jagged” is the word used on Wikipedia under the song’s composition section. A very suitable adjective. It applies to the solo too. A bit repetitive, sure. But again, it’s the tone. Jon Buckland plays his guitar very differently to his usual style in the song. There are those wild guitar string bends going on in the back when Martin sings the “When the future’s architectured… / “Bury me in armour” parts of the verses. All adds to the drama. I think Guy Berryman’s bass line throughout is quite underrated too. He’s right in the pocket, and he does these little fills here and there which hit the spot. Then all the commotion’s swiped away to leave Martin singing the last section on his own with his piano. It’s all good, good stuff. And this album is where some people say Coldplay changed for the worse. Couldn’t be more wrong. The next album, though, we could have a conversation about.

So what’s it about? What’s it about? Well, obviously there’s a relationship situation going on within the song. “If you love me, won’t you let me know?” The chorus line sung in unison by the entire band with Martin’s going into falsetto for a brief moment in the centre. It’s great how he sings quite low in the verses that it feels like a climactic moment when he goes to a higher register for those choruses. And then, with the talk about ‘a carnival of idiots on show’, not wanting to be a soldier and a fox becoming God, well, that’s all a metaphor for the USA in the mid-2000s. George Bush Jr. in charge, no one taking him all that seriously. Where does a fox come into it? The fox is meant to be a reference to FOX News. So there you go. It’s anti-war, and it’s about looking at America, making a commentary on their society at the time and thinking, “What the hell is going on over there?” Some things never change. You don’t feel as if there’s a lot of hope left by the end of the song. It’s hearing it within the context of the album that I think elevates it that little more, ’cause ‘Strawberry Swing’ follows, arriving as the most optimistic song on there. That last leg of Viva… from the title track onwards, that’s a strong, strong run. So you may be able to guess, this won’t be the last song of the LP to be covered here.