The Church of Chris Martin

{This is the last part - for now - in our series collecting the wit and wisdom of Chris Martin.These proverbs can be memorised, tattooed, carved in stone, anything - just as long as you carry the words with you always.}

On Bono: I felt like a fourth-rate Bono. Later on, I felt like a third-rate Bono and hopefully it’ll escalate until I feel like a full-on Bono.

On Hello!: If a celebrity magazine is in an airport lounge, I’ll have a look. I like gossip as much as the next man. But then, I’ll bump into someone I’ve read about and I’ll say, ‘Oh, I read so-and-so…’ and I curse myself, because I hate people coming up to me and going, ‘Chris I read that you’re macrobiotic, is that true?’ And I say, ‘Well, no, not really.’

On the Threat to the Middle Classes: If the world keeps going the way it is, it’s going to be bad for everybody, not just for poor people.

On the Wu-Tang Clan: We are just a bunch of students. I’d think, “Gosh, I’m just some public-school boy with my house colours… ” I haven’t got any experiences as valid as the Wu-Tang Clan.

On Politics: I would say don’t be such a stupid c**t, because to say politics and music don’t mix is to say that politics and gardening don’t mix, or politics and plumbing. Politics concerns everybody.

On Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk are obviously in the top three bands of all time. They’re amazing. This is going to sound highly pretentious, but I was reading a book about Leonardo Da Vinci, and it said he was like a man who had woken up in the dark before everyone else got up hours later. That’s like listening to Kraftwerk.

CHRIS BE WITH YOU!

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Did you know!?

“Tears stream down your face…” (X&Y 4:22)

Chris Martin has claimed that the fourthcoming Coldplay album, Viva la Vida, includes “the greatest song ever written”. But if the results of Scientific Tests are to believed, you might still end up in tears. For the song, Death and All His Friends, instantly causes uncontrollable sobbing in anyone who hears it.

“We have tested it in every possible circumstance, and so far no-one has been able to make it past the second verse without blubbering,” a top expert said. “We’ve played it to everything from monkeys to shrews - if it has a tear duct, it’ll wail. In fact, we didn’t even know that fruit-flies could cry, and they seem to be secreting a greyish liquid through their carapaces in a grotesque pastiche of their emotional human masters.”

“We even played it to a Nazi. He broke at the end of the chorus, whimpering like a prick. Only one other person that we tested managed to suppress their lamentations any further into the song - the “popular” “singer” and world-renouned rhyming slang, James Blunt.”

Archpope-in-Cheif Dean Drobbingdon is declaring it a miracle. “There is simply no way that a piece of music can have an affect that is so profound. There are stories of ancient temples and cathedrals that had such perfect form that they could produce tears, but nothing on this scale. The important thing is its testability. This is a piece of art that can produce an inexplicable effect, repeatedly and on demand. What we are looking at here is scientific evidence of the existence of God.”

But even its being an officially-sanctioned supernatural religious phenomenon hasn’t stopped some people thinking of ways that it could be put to more practical use. Expect Coldplay to allow the track to be used in anger management sessions (allowing the release of pent-up emotions), rape alarms (not only immobilising the attacker with bitter sobs, but probably ruining his erection too), and for teachers, the song having been proven to take a class of 30 working-class children from an intense hysteria to a pathetic anguished whimpering in just under 42 seconds.

They won’t be allowing everyone to use it, however. It’s no surprise that the military has made enquiries, but not just any military. We’re talking about the Chinese military.

Beijing are hoping to use it against Olympics protesters, who have found considerable support in the West. “It is a perfect weapon,” a person said, “It will look to the world’s media that they have simply been overtaken by the emotion of seeing this flame, and all that it represents.”

Ironically, the Viva la Vida track entitled Chinese Sleep Chant does not have any known side effects. Any sedative effect experienced will be the standard amount found in all of Coldplay’s recordings.

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Did you know!? and news

Then, the USA went to war, and so did The Cold Mountain Singers. They returned to performing upon their return, but they were different men, older and wiser, with a new found urgency to spread their message. Their repertoire had changed too, to incorporate original compositions.

Jim Gilhooley said about the inspiration for Fix Y’all: “Darned if ah don’t know where it came from. I was huddlin in some darn trench with my brother, German shells a-flying over our heads. Then all of a sudden, there comes this strange silence, an all the guns quit shellin, and the sunshine began to break through the clouds and smoke. The tune, the words, everything, began to play in ma head, and I had to rush to git everything writ down in time. It was like it was being channelled through me, comin down from the Most High. I looked up to the sun, and instead ah saw a bright glowing face, with short and curly mousey hair and big blue eyes. He had no beard, and when he spoke it sounded a darn site more english an middle-class than ah reckoned for. He said that it would all make sense one day. Before he disappeared he said “Make Trade Fair.” Ah guess ah didn’t know what to make of that.”

This track was recorded live in Nashville in 1954 during a successful month-long residency. Their star was still in its ascendancy, but a darkness had entered their act. It was only a matter of time before they were to be torn apart.

1 Comment » Posted by drobbingdon / Church History and Did you know!?

Tom and Jim Gilhooley (AKA The Cold Mountain Singers) were born on Cold Mountain Farm, Hatchenchubbee, Arkansas, in 1916, the twin sons of an itinerant Polish railroad labourer and an alchoholic seamstress of Scottish extraction. They were raised by both parents on their run-down farmstead until the depression began to bite, and their father left in 1931, never again seeing his boys.

Their mother struggled through, scraping a meagre existance from the dusty soil, supplimented by occasional sewing jobs. Tom and Jim learned to amuse themselves with bible reading and by singing traditional songs, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo. They were soon a popular turn at the Waverley Saloon, and began to attract attention from the city.

By 1938, the boys were a successful act, playing to audiences throughout Arkansas, and begining to make a name for themselves. This track is believed to have been recorded in 1939, and is one of a mere handful of tracks that are known to have survived.

{The distinct similarity of some of these songs and the work of the contemporary group Coldplay is currently the subject of a major legal proceeding, and I am unable to comment further at this time.}

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Church History and Did you know!?

“How long will I have to climb, Up on the side of this mountain of mine?”

Most have taken this line from Speed of Sound as metaphorical. Some say that it is a reference to Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam (see picture). Others have opined that the “mountain” is in fact Chris himself, as he struggles to “climb” past his human frailties to reveal the God within. But its not.

Last October, Chris and the other guys in Coldplay bought a whole mountain in Colorado, Mount Messiah. But they insist (as usual) that there is nothing symbolic in the name.

CO2 Balancing, which Coldplay have been championing for several years, is the principle of sustaining an area of forest sufficient to convert the carbon dioxide that you produce back into oxygen. The idea is for Coldplay to extend their CO2 balancing to cover their entire lives, as well as their tours. Coldplay’s four members now own an astonishing 30 cars, several of them being “gas-guzzling” SUV’s. “It was cheaper than a forest,” said Chris, matter-of-factly.

But Chris and the boys soon found that there was more to the mountains than being eco-friendly. Guitarist Jon Buckland has taken up rock-climbing, claiming that it is an excellant way of relieving the stresses of international fame. And the normally shy and retiring Will Berryman (28) hopes to go and hunt black bear when the season begins in November.

But Chris, who has been spending an increasing amount of time there, believes that the money-making potential of Mount Messiah may one day outweigh Coldplay’s. “We know how lucky we’ve been, and that success can’t last forever. So you’ve got to think about the future, especially when you have a family.”

“We’re talking about building lodges, restaurants, maybe a cable car. People could come on fishing trips and family holidays. And it’s only an hour’s drive from the nearest airport.”

3 Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Did you know!?