“Viva La Vida – Coldplay”
The song has many layers for musical instruments which makes the song so catchy and keeps the listener keen on listening harder to reveal each layer. Instruments used were cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, xylophone and synth. Each instrument uses different articulations such as how the cello uses constant staccato whilst the violins harmonise with it but with a bow, this keeps variation in the songs sound.
The songs structure is kind of basic but they have a few little twists. Verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, breakdown and then the outro. This is almost like a basic yet they have 2 verses to start and after the breakdown, it’s almost like they fade out by adding an outro but usually people go into another chorus first. This creates quite a long start to the song, with the two verses, but verses kind of deepen the lyrics because a chorus usually repeats but verses kind of tell the story bit by bit. This song feels like a story through the lyrics and music together.
Viva La Vida in Spanish means long live life, which expresses the lyrics story.
The song is in 4/4 with 138BPM and in the key of Ab minor. Even though the song has a basic build up, it was the first song to chart in both the UK and USA. This, again, proves that the song doesn’t need to be complex in order to chart and be successful. It appears that basic songs seem to do very well as long as it’s catchy or tells a good story. The song charted number 2 on Billboard’s 100, number 1 0n Hot100 and number 1 in UK Hot singles.
The song is an interpretation of King Louis’s lost last speech before he died, it’s wrote from his point of view and he’s basically apologising to his people whilst accepting his fate. The album cover is from the French Revolution.