Only one world. Oh, one world. Only one

…

In the end, it’s just love

What the heck does this even mean? What specific problem does this help me solve?

As a huge fan of Coldplay, I’ve grown up with and lived many of life’s peak emotional experiences through their music. I often say they have an album for every occasion, whether it’s a party or a pre-dawn long drive.

I’ve also watched their music and message evolve over the years. They’ve matured as a band alongside my own generation (or maybe those slightly ahead of me). It’s a bit of a cliché that pop bands become more openly political in their later years, and Coldplay is proving to be no different. What I’m fascinated by, though, is the shift to a particular worldview that seems to be common to many pop stars, which I think rings increasingly hollow to our culture. There seems to be a characteristic arc towards a theme of shallow platitudes about love. Let me demonstrate.

Coldplay’s early music and message is hard to characterise because it’s so vague. This itself is a characteristic. I never paid much attention to the lyrics of their songs, even when they meant so much to me. The actual words were hard to discern, but even when put together, they formed a sort of emotional choose-your-own-adventure where you could read your own emotions and story into the song. This was part of their genius.

If I had to pick a general theme of Coldplay’s early music it would be “Life is an adventure and love is the most important thing in life”.

The Coldplay pattern is ‘party in the front, reflection in the back’, and the tail end of an album is where to find the most serious thoughts – especially the quietly spoken refrain at the very end of the last song.

A sample of all their studio albums’ last lyrics is revealing:

Everything’s not lost:

But life is for living, we all know, And I don’t want to live it alone

Amsterdam:

Stood on the edge, tied to the noose, You came along and you cut me loose

Til Kingdom Come:

For you, I’d wait ’til kingdom come, Until my days, my days are done
And say you’ll come and set me free, Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me

Death and All His Friends:

I don’t wanna follow Death and all of his friends
In the end we lie awake and we dream of making escape

Up with the birds:

A simple plot, but I know one day, Good things are coming our way

O/Fly On:

Fly on, ride through. Maybe one day I can fly with you. Fly on

Up & Up:

When you think you’ve had enough
Don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up

Everyday Life:

At first light, Throw my arms out open wide
Hallelujah. Hallelujah

Coloratura:

In this crazy world, it’s true. I just want you

One World:

Only one world. Oh, one world. Only one
In the end, it’s just love

A very quick sample of some more recent lyrics and songs demonstrates where their themes are.
‘Higher power’ is about the divine nature of love, subtle-ly  equating human love with a supernatural power.
‘Humankind’ takes a stab at the question of what it means to be human:

I know, I know, I know, How we’re designed
Oh I know, I know, I know, We’re only human
But we’re capable of kindness
So they call us humankind

‘Moon music’ opens the new album with another allusion to some vague sovereign power that is associated with love.

But I’m trying to trust in the heavens above
And I’m trying to trust in a world full of love

Jupiter is a foray into the LGBT world – the logical extension of a ‘love is everything’ worldview.

“Am I bad? Am I wrong? Am I not okay?
Speaking only words that a girl can’t say”
Still she followed the rain to where the rainbow lay
All of the angels singing “Come and say”

“I love who I love (I love who I love)
Oh yeah, I love who I love (I love who I love)
I love who I love,” the message from above
Is never give up, love who you love

The implication is of a divine sanction of the supremacy of love, or even a suggestion that the divine being is love. The divine is a constant motif throughout all of Coldplay’s lyrics, but especially in their later albums, as it becomes more and more closely associated with love.

Just to seal the deal, here are two representative songs from some other big bands. One could do an entire PhD on this theme in pop music and its ability to represent our entire culture.

U2 – One:

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should
One life with each other
Sisters, brothers

The Beatles – All You Need Is Love:

All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

It is not hard to trace this worldview throughout mainstream thought. It is everywhere you look. It drives almost the entirety of the progressive agenda.

The problem is: it means basically nothing, and I think everyone knows that. Once you boil it down, there is nothing to anchor the definition of love, and no way to apply this to any real-world application. Most human conflict is not so much about the presence vs absence of love, but of misdirected love. Almost every ethical issue of our time (think of abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage) can be argued about from a grounding of ‘love’ on both sides. It just very much depends on how you define that love and who is the object of it.

The fascinating thing about it, is that it’s a Christian heresy. We only love love so much because our culture is deeply Christian. Chris Martin (Coldplay) is quite near the mark when he sings of a divine power who basically is the concept of love. The bible says that God IS love:

“God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” – 1 John 4:16

And the scriptures are full of the praise of love as the supreme attribute:

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” – John 3:16

This is yet another of the emotionally potent oversimplifications which dominate our culture. Yes, God is love. But he is also Justice. And when you think of it, while-ever evil exists, how could love ever be truly love if there was no justice? God is not some vague notion. He is a person whose character defines our moral universe. He makes of us a very real and clear set of specific moral demands, and the wrath resulting from transgression of these is the very thing God’s love saves us from. This picture is incomplete whenever you try to separate any of these terms and universalise it. They cannot be defined without reference to each other.

The more pop musicians sing these kinds of songs, the more shrill they sound. The more they ring hollow in a culture where people get that it’s deeper than they make it out to be. They are sick of the platitudes and want actual answers. In Jesus, we have the deepest, most complete and real philosophy of love, life and everything else that explains all reality.