The Scientist

The Scientist
publication	November 4, 2002
length	5:09 (album version) 4:26 (radio edit)
Genre (s)	Alternative rock , britpop , ballad
Author (s)	Guy Berryman , Jonny Buckland , Will Champion , Chris Martin
Label	Parlophone

The Scientist is the second single from the album A Rush of Blood to the Head by British alternative rock band Coldplay . The song was written by all band members together. Musically it is a piano ballad , the text is about a man's longing for love. The song got extremely good reviews and there are numerous remixes. The music video also won three MTV Video Music Awards .

Emergence

In an interview with Rolling Stone while working on A Rush of Blood to the Head , Martin confessed that the album was still missing something. While staying overnight in Liverpool , Martin found an old, out of tune piano. He wanted to work on George Harrison's Isn't It a Pity , but he couldn't. Instead, he improvised a piano riff, whereupon he asked that a recorder be turned on. He later recorded piano and vocals in a Liverpool studio.

Music and lyrics

The Scientist is a ballad with a very characteristic piano riff . At the beginning of the song only Chris Martin is with piano and vocals to hear after the first chorus coming drums , acoustic guitar and bass added. Only towards the end was an electric guitar installed. The song also contains string instruments .

The text thematizes a man's powerlessness in the face of love. His helplessness is illustrated in the first verse of the chorus, “nobody said it was easy” . The first lines of the song are an apology: "Come up to meet you / tell you I'm sorry / you don't know how lovely you are" (I came to meet you / to tell you that I am sorry does / you don't know how lovely you are). At the end of the song it is made clear that this man is trying a new beginning: "I'm going back to the start" ( I'm going back to the beginning).

The title of the song alludes to questions about science, this is deepened, for example, in the third verse: “I was just guessing at numbers and figures / pulling the puzzles apart / questions of science, science and progress / do not speak as loud as my heart. ” (I was just guessing / numbers and numbers / taking the puzzle apart / science questions / science and progress / not speaking as loudly as my heart).

publication

Chris Martin plays "The Scientist" in 2005 on the Twisted Logic Tour

The Scientist was released in Europe on November 4th as the second single from the album A Rush of Blood to the Head . In addition to the song, the single contained two B-sides : 1.36 and I Ran Away .

In the US, the song was initially not released as a single because the label said it was not good enough and instead released Clocks . On April 15th, The Scientist was released anyway.

The artwork comes from Sølve Sundsbø and - as was the case with all singles on the album - a band member, here drummer Will Champion .

reception

The Scientist got very good reviews. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield spoke of the "fantastic piano ballad 'The Scientist'" which has "a disastrous falsetto finale that any hair can stand on the back of the neck."

The NME -author Ian Watson wrote that was "the song inseparable from the endless night sky and the secret hopes and regrets of hundreds of thousands of strangers." In October 2011 NME gave the song 37th place in the "150 Best Songs of the Last 15 Years"

In 2012, The Scientist was ranked 11th among the most frequently heard tracks of the last 10 years on the Internet radio Last.fm.

In Germany the single only reached number 87 in the charts, but was able to place itself again in October 2009 after the song was interpreted by several candidates in the casting show Popstars , and then reached number 26. In Austria the song reached number 28 and in Switzerland even ranked 6th. The Scientist has meanwhile been sold over half a million times.

Chart placements

Charts	Top ranking	Weeks
Chart placements
Germany (GfK)	26th (10 weeks)	10
Austria (Ö3)	8th (6 weeks)	6th
Switzerland (IFPI)	28 (4 weeks)	4th
United Kingdom (OCC)	10 (20 weeks)	20th

Other versions

The Scientist was featured on Coldplay Live's first live album in 2003 . There is also a live cover by Aimee Mann , which appeared on the 2004 special edition of the album Lost in Space . Another cover is on the album Scarred by Johnette Napolitano . There is also a new interpretation on the album Into Paradise by the choir group All Angels .

Natasha Bedingfield , Alex Band , Eamon and Avril Lavigne also played the song, they appeared on the radio show Jo Whiley's Live Lounge . Also Belinda Carlisle coverte the song, but in the reality show Hit Me Baby One More Time radio station ITV1. Another live performance of the song was at Oprah Winfrey's No Phone Zone clash in Los Angeles, where Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen performed a duet .

In 2011, Willie Nelson covered The Scientist for the Chipotle Mexican Grill sponsored film Back to the Start . In addition, the song is covered in the TV series Glee , with singers including Cory Monteith , Darren Criss , Naya Rivera , Matthew Morrison , Lea Michele , Chris Colfer , Heather Morris and Jayma Mays .

The American show MADtv parodied the video under the new title The Narcissist (The Narcissist ).

The song is part of the soundtrack for the films Sehnsüchtig and Fifty Shades of Gray (2017). In the latter, a version of the British singer Corinne Bailey Rae was used, which also reached the German charts after publication.

Music video

The Scientist music video became very popular for its remarkable backward narration. For this, however, singer Chris Martin had to learn to sing the song backwards, which took him a month. The video was shot in a variety of locations including Surrey prior to the A Rush of Blood to the Head Tour . Directed by Jamie Thraves . The video was released on August 14, 2002.

At the beginning of the video, Martin is lying on an outdoor mattress, singing. Martin stands up backwards and also moves backwards through the city. He reaches the suburbs and finally a forest where his car is parked. In front of it lies his dead girlfriend. Then you see them fly back through the broken window of the car, which then becomes whole again. The car rolls backwards up a hill and drives through a broken fence, which is then returned to its original shape. At the end you see Martin and his girlfriend laughing along a country road.

In 2003 the video won three MTV Video Music Awards . The Scientist became the best music video in a group, won the award for best director and was able to prevail in the breakthrough video category. The video was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Short Music Video category, but Johnny Cash's Hurt won .

Track list

single

1. "The Scientist" - 5:11
2. "1.36" - 2:05 (together with Tim Wheeler from Ash as guitarist)
3. "I Ran Away" - 4:26

DVD

1. "The Scientist" (Edit)
2. "The Scientist" (video running backwards)
3. "Lips Like Sugar" (Live, Echo - & - the-Bunnymen - Cover )
4. Interview with the band members

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James Oldham: Coldplay Yellow Fever . In: Auckland, New Zealand Newspaper , July 2002. 
2. ↑ Nigel Parker: Coldplay's Rush is near-flawless . In: BBC News . BBC. August 23, 2002. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
3. ^ Adrian Denning: Coldplay album reviews . Adrian Denning.com. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
4. ↑ Christopher Gray: Phases and Stages - Record Review . In: The Austin Chronicle . October 4, 2002. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
5. ^ The State of Coldplay . In: Q , August 2002. 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} The Scientist Lyrics . MTV. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
7. ↑ David Cheal: Perfect Playlist: Coldplay . In: The Daily Telegraph . October 12, 2006, p. 030.
8. ↑ Coldplay Scientist B-Sides . In: Yahoo Music . Yahoo! Retrieved September 1, 2008.
9. ↑ Jon Wiederhorn: Coldplay Singer Questions Whether He's The Devil . In: MTV News . October 15, 2002. Retrieved July 15, 2008.
10. ^ Rob Sheffield: A Rush Of Blood To The Head . In: Rolling Stone . August 26, 2002. Retrieved August 30, 2008.
11. ^ Ian Watson, Coldplay: The Scientist . In: NME . October 31, 2002. Retrieved August 30, 2008.
12. ↑ http://www.nme.com/list/150-best-tracks-of-the-past-15-years/248648/page/12
13. ↑ Most popular titles from 10 years of scrobbling . lastfm.de. Archived from the original on January 2, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 25, 2013. 
14. ↑ Scientist will hit the German charts on October 19, 2009 on oljo.de; accessed on February 21, 2017
15. ↑ Chart history for "The Scientist" on officialcharts.de, accessed on February 21, 2017
16. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK
17. ↑ Jeff Magill: Review: Mighty rush from world's best band , Europe Intelligence Wire. November 21, 2003. Retrieved September 29, 2009. 
18. ↑ Blender: The 500 greatest songs since you were born . In: Blender . Retrieved May 4, 2013.
19. ↑ Living Legends Music: Belinda Carlisle . Living Legends. Archived from the original on January 10, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 3, 2008. 
20. ↑ Tom Semioli: Johnette Napolitano - Running Scarred . In: Amplifier Magazine . May 29, 2007. Archived from the original on July 4, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 3, 2008. 
21. ↑ Jack Jewers: All Angels, Into Paradise . In: BBC Music . BBC. November 21, 2007. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
22. ↑ Avril Lavigne sings 'The Scientist' by Coldplay . youtube. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
23. ↑ Run For Cover (s): Letters A to E . Feed show. July 2, 2005. Archived from the original on July 10, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 3, 2008. 
24. ↑ Avril Lavigne "The Scientist" - Coldplay Cover . Mixtape Maestro. July 9, 2007. Archived from the original on January 20, 2008. Retrieved on September 3, 2008.
25. ↑ Kris Allen & Allison Iraheta Don't Phone It In On 'Oprah' Duet . Retrieved August 5, 2010.
26. ^ Willie Nelson Covers Coldplay's 'The Scientist' . In: Taste of Country . Retrieved August 31, 2011. 
27. ↑ ^{a b c d} Gil Kaufman: The Story Behind Coldplay's 'The Scientist' . In: MTV News . August 1, 2006. Retrieved September 21, 2009.
28. ^ Coldplay - The Scientist . Mvdbase.com. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
29. ^ Old and new battle for MTV awards . In: BBC News . BBC. July 27, 2003. Retrieved August 31, 2008.
30. ^ Sal Cinquemani and Eric Henderson: Forecast: 46th Annual Grammy Awards . In: Slant . Retrieved August 31, 2008.