"Violet Hill" by Coldplay
Reviewed by: Josh Meares
Note: We focus on reviewing songs, and therefore cannot comment on the appropriateness of the album in its entirety. Please use your best judgment whenever purchasing or listening to music.
The Artist
Coldplay is a London-based quartet made up of singer Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion. Their debut album, "Parachutes," released in late 2000, won Best Alternative Music Album at the 2002 Grammys. Their second album, "A Rush of Blood to the Head," took home two Grammys and earned a spot on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. The group's third album, "X&Y," became the best-selling album of 2005, and the song "Speed of Sound" topped the year's charts worldwide.
The Album
Coldplay has been at the top of the music scene for the last 6 years, and fans eagerly await their next album, releasing June 17, 2008. Interviews with the band reveal that they're striking out into new territory with "Viva la Vida." Under the inspiration and encouragement of legendary producer Brian Eno, the sound and the themes are reportedly darker and edgier. Judging from "Violet Hill," the collaboration with Eno succeeds. But with track titles like "Cemeteries of London" and "Death and All His Friends," the lyrics may be more appropriate for high-schoolers than tweens.
The Song
Coldplay has been known for songs with ambiguous lyrics. "Violet Hill" breaks that trend. It's unquestionably a song about war. And it's the first Coldplay song that sounds angry. "Violet Hill" reminds me of the anti-war protest songs of the 60s and 70s. It is strongly rhythmic, with a driving, slightly discordant electric guitar riff, and a strong drumbeat reminiscent of soldiers marching. An instant hit, "Violet Hill" was downloaded 1.5 million times in its first 3 days on the market.
"Violet Hill" tells the thoughts of a soldier who goes off to war and comes back. It begins with peaceful piano, and the young man speaks of how he remembers the snow. Then the angry guitar and drums enter, and Coldplay tries to capture the feeling and meaning of war in music. Martin comments on two groups of people in this song: politicians and Christians.
Lyric: "When the future's architectured / By a carnival of idiots on show / You better lie low"
When the future is built by "idiots on show" (i.e., politicians on camera), Martin says, stupidity is what we should expect. Obviously, he doesn't have a very high view of politicians. He also talks about politicians watching the war, not fighting it themselves. He suggests that war is stupid and meaningless, so young men should hide from it.
Next the song takes a shot at religion and Christianity.
Lyric: "Priests clutched onto bibles / Hollowed out to fit their rifles / And the cross was held aloft"
This lyric is striking, almost prophetic in its blunt irony. Priests hold onto Bibles, but they had cut out the pages so that their rifles would fit. Yet "the cross was held aloft." The priests still claimed the support of Jesus for their cause. But the irony goes even deeper. Martin uses Jesus' cross, which represents the death of Jesus in the place of his enemies. The rifle is the symbol of men who kill their enemies. These two symbols are opposed, yet they are held together by priests as if they are one. Chris Martin sees and sings about an apparent contradiction in the message of Christ and the message of the church.
Is it a contradiction? Christians have long been divided on the issue of how fighting in war and living for Jesus go together. Over the years, believers have taken two positions on war: pacifism and what is sometimes called the "just war doctrine." Christian pacifists use texts like Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:37 to show that our command is to love even our enemies, including national foes. They emphasize that our allegiance to God is higher than our allegiance to state. They notice that Jesus, Paul, Peter, and many other figures in the New Testament were put to death for disobeying national law. Some pacifists see Jesus' disarming of Peter in Matthew 26:51 ("Put your sword away. For all who live by the sword will die by the sword.") as an example for all Christians to follow.
The Christian pacifist position can be summed up by Mennonite Myron Augsburger, who asked, "How can we kill another human being for whom Jesus died? How can we adopt the attitude that ÔJesus loves you, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you?' "
On the other hand, many Christians believe that, although war is not good, it is sometimes necessary to overcome or prevent greater evil. They question how righteous people can do nothing when evil men attack the innocent such as Hitler's murderous vendetta against the Jews. Passages like Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17 are presented to show that Christians have responsibilities to their nations as well as to God -- and that nations are instruments of God's justice. The just war doctrine seeks to limit the evil of war by making rules of war such as forbidding the killing of non-combatants, requiring that war be for a just cause, and that war be a last resort.
We've come again in our history to a moment when sincere Jesus-followers disagree strongly with each other on this issue. However, we must remember that all of us are in the business of bringing God's message of ultimate peace to the world. In 2 Corinthians 5:19-20, Paul writes, "In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's sins against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us."
Chris Martin has shown us once more that the world is watching the church. God is making His plea to the world through us. What message are we sending out? This song should prompt serious reflection on war and violence and how they relate to us as believers in Jesus.
Questions
- Would Jesus go to war?
- What does it mean to love our enemies?
- When is it permissible not to love our enemies, according to the Bible?
- Is violence sometimes necessary? When and why? Can you defend that stance from the New Testament?
- Why does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 5:12, "For what do I have to do with judging those outside [the church]? Are you not to judge those inside? But God will judge those outside [the church]"?
- Romans 13 tells us to respect and obey every authority because it is an instrument of God's justice. Does this include going to war? How does Romans 12 fit in with its admonition: "Do not overcome evil with evil. But overcome evil with good."? How does this posture of obedience line up with Paul's own life in which he was severely punished on many occasions for breaking the law?
- In Romans 13, when Paul says all governments should be obeyed, he is writing to Christians living in a pagan dictatorship. How does that teaching fit with our current questions about war and culture?