Lyrics For Thought: “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay
June 9, 2009 2 Comments
A Spirit in C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce informed a man, “When you painted on earth–at least in your earlier days–it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too.”
One of my qualifications for good art is that it gives us some glimpse of Truth. This means that in lyrical music I tend to gravitate toward the writings of Christians and their illuminations about God or Love or Joy or whatever. Yet sometimes, despite Truth’s majestic and far-reaching canvas, Christians will seem stuck repainting the same clichéd corner while someone else comes along and – perhaps quite unknowingly – depicts something grand. In fact, the two songs that have recently fascinated me the most were not penned by professing Christians. The first was Flobot’s “Handlebars,” in which we are shown a sweeping picture of the destructiveness of increasing power and pride. The second half of that story lies in the aftermath of what happens once that power is gone…
And so I give you Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”
