Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories

     Whether the entire album is about Gwyneth Paltrow or not, Coldplay’s sixth studio album will forever be labeled as the breakup album of all breakup albums. Just a couple months before Ghost Stories’ 2014 release, Chris Martin and his wife of over ten years as well as the mother of his two kids announced that they were getting separated. One year later, the divorce papers were filed and a different sound of Coldplay music launched.

     The first song released as a teaser of Ghost Stories was “Midnight,” which painted a picture related to the name of the album through Martin’s ghost-like, echoing vocals and shuddering instrumentals. His drawn out “oohs” are reminiscent of a lone wolf howling at midnight. With this first song’s release listeners’ were initially let in on the artist’s feelings of loneliness and hopelessness, but the repetition of “leave a light, a light on,” showed Martin’s desire for his love to want him to come home as well as help guide him home. “Magic” was released next as the leading single and what would be track #2 of the album, which completely changed listeners’ grasp of what the rest of the album’s dynamics and sound would be. This track similarly contrasted Martin’s heartbreak with his still existing love for his wife. However, the short, fragmented lyrics and upbeat, pop tempo make the song have a breathy, bubbly, or light quality much different from the dark, haunting mood in “Midnight.” Despite the consistent themes of pain and longing between the two songs, the variation in music qualities revealed how Ghost Stories would contain a collection of Chris Martin’s distinct attitudes toward the current, messy, state of his love life.

     Love and relationships have been addressed in many of Coldplay’s albums throughout the years, but their past work for the most part has not overtly referenced Martin’s views on love in the way his newest album does. Ghost Stories has possibly the least ambiguous lyrics of the band’s entire collection in comparison to usual, ambiguous lines such as, “Come out of things unsaid//Shoot an apple off my head and a//Trouble that can't be named//A tiger's waiting to be tamed,” from the 2014 Grammy Record of the Year, “Clocks.” The more simple, explicit lyrics of Ghost Stories is part of the reason why so many critics have wrongly slapped a label that reads BREAKUP ALBUM on the cover of Ghost Stories, called it a day, and moved on without giving the album much more thought or consideration, especially not in the context of Martin’s position on the topics he is expressing.

            The opening song of the album, “Always in My Head,” is pretty self-explanatory. Chris Martin coos with drawn-out, hypnotic notes supported by a dream-like, enchanting melody to admit how he cannot sleep or keep his mind off of thinking about his wife. However, the more important part of the message is not revealed until he sighs, “But though I try my heart stays still.” Despite not being able to forget everything that happened between them, both good and bad, his heart will remain attached and longing for Paltrow. It is interesting how Martin is confessing to his continual, involuntary commitment to his wife when this loyalty did nothing to save the life-long, sacred commitment of marriage itself. There are many options for how this irony came into play, but almost all can be sorted into two main umbrella reasons: either Paltrow was the only one who wanted to terminate the marriage or Martin and Paltrow let other factors take precedence over their sheer love for each other in terms of the kind of bond that was holding their marriage together. In today’s society, the purpose of marriage has greatly shifted from its historic obligation of marrying for social, political, or economic benefits to now marrying out of personal choice, for love. A result of marriage’s different functionality is when love begins to fade, as it often does due to hardships and change, nothing is left to keep the institution glued together. Yet, Martin here is opposing this idea of love failing as the cause for divorce by showing how his love for Gwyneth has not faded. Therefore, the artist demonstrates that other factors fueled the divorce.

            “All I know//Is that I love you so//So much that it hurts,” is the chorus of the third track of the album, “Ink.” This cry of love for his wife again suggests the idea of an eternal, lasting love and commitment to his spouse even when the marriage has broken apart. Martin suggests that marriage begins as something great that signifies “together through life,” but that definition of marriage really does nothing to keep a couple together. Recently researchers have determined that about half of marriages today will end in divorce, and a good amount of those divorces will occur less than five years into the marriage. Although the percentage of individuals who get a divorce has experienced a sharp increase, marriage is still widely regarded as a concept that signifies a promise to be faithful to each other for a lifetime. Consequently, the idea that so many people choose to end their marriage after once viewing the institution as being sacred and forever does not line-up. There is a great incongruence or inconsistency with Americans’ beliefs about marriage and their practices or ways of carrying out their marriage. Martin touches on this new, conflicting reality of marriage in his melancholy, heavy song, “O.” In this reflection Martin’s vocals stand alone with the rolling piano serving as the only instrument as he tells how in his eyes, marriage is just considered “a flock of birds,” because “One minute they arrive//Next you know they’re gone.” He reiterates how marriage somehow has transformed into a temporary agreement that is just as fleeting and unpredictable as birds.

            It isn’t until we listen to “Another’s Arms” that a possible explanation for the breakup is illustrated. Rumors aside, this track emulates two distinct themes with its title. Through the eerie repetition of the phrase “another’s arms” in the background while he describes himself going through his normal, daily life, Chris Martin could be pleading for the comfort of another person, as in his wife’s familiarity, amidst his dark post-breakup period. However, the use of “another” rather than “you,” the almost whispering singing approach taken by Martin, and the fading additional vocalists echoing in the background all mix together to make a stranger or outside lover reference jump out at me. The possibility of Martin demonstrating how an affair continuously haunts both the adulterer and their spouse brings up an important idea of the influences on marriages today. American culture and majority opinion both demonstrate how most people are very intolerant of infidelity because monogamy is one of the promises intertwined within marriage’s lifetime commitment. Yet, at the same time, in today’s society there is an increasing percentage of individuals who have an extramarital affair. Despite a high population of Americans with values that disapprove of unfaithfulness, our high expectations for finding fulfillment and perfection in marriage, which arise from its accepted, socially-promoted definition and standards, makes infidelity all the more common.

            In “True Love” Chris Martin makes reference to this perfect, ideal image that we hold up of what we think “true love” really is. With more hard-hitting, deep beats in the instrumentation and a bass guitar solo, a sense of danger is created to emphasize the effects of trying to strive for an unattainable romance where there is no conflict and no mistakes. In the verses, the artist describes how failing to be transparent and honest does not save one’s spouse from getting hurt, it only creates more distance between the partners. (We also see this theme repeated in “Ghost Story,” one of the bonus tracks off the album. In this song Martin compares himself to “a ghost,” “a puff of smoke,” and someone that’s “not even here,” because he is struggling to get closer to Gwyneth when she does not open up to him.) Contrarily, in the chorus of “True Love” Martin changes his tone from accusing to pleading. He gives us an example of sinking back into the mindset of wanting to cover up the problems at hand in a relationship in hopes that they will all go away eventually. He begs, “So tell me you love me//And if you don't then lie//Lie to me,” even though just moments before he was upset about how Paltrow was not truthful and never “let [him] know//What’s really going on below.” This lack of wanting to open our eyes and face the actuality of our relationships arises from romantic ideals. We have been accustomed to forming high expectations which becomes problematic. In effect, the end result is that we place great demands and immense pressure on our marriages. The purpose of marriage has blindly come to be viewed as something that will serve all of our needs and give us complete happiness that reaches all corners of our life, whether or not those areas are even related to or dependent on our spouse.

     It is very difficult and extremely unlikely to rescue or continue a relationship after a divorce has already shattered the marriage, but is it better to try to put a halt to the divorce or try to prevent the marriage itself in the first place? In Ghost Stories, Chris Martin illuminates the idea of how quickly a marriage can change, and how a once serious and wonderful commitment can easily disappear right before one’s eyes. One way to resolve this discrepancy between how our American culture values and executes marriage would be to change the way we view marriage. Whether that is making it more acceptable to not get married, changing the social definition of marriage to not necessarily mean life-time and monogamous, being more tolerant of infidelity, or redefining marriage for just you and your partner’s unique relationship, it is necessary that we adapt to the changing face of marriage depicted in Coldplay’s album.

Former Lives

Former Lives

     Benjamin Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, had been hoarding a collection of misfit songs for many years leading up to the release of his solo album Former Lives. In the time between when Gibbard began writing the songs and their actual release, Death Cab for Cutie released three separate studio albums. The artist said in an interview that Former Lives, truly spans "eight years, three relationships, living in two different places, drinking then not drinking" giving the album its unique yet scatter-brained quality. His past, that couldn’t be expressed within Death Cab’s established box of their brand, is able to be housed in this album and thus set free to be heard.

     Elements of this 2012 album allude to the Modernism despite being created in a different time period. Modernism is a philosophical movement that arose in the late 19^th and early 20^th century from the great changes that were occurring in Western society. A characteristic of modernist thinking is their rejection of traditional ways of viewing the world as well as of established forms of faith, art, literature, social activities, innovation, and thinking. Ben Gibbard attempts to revive this approach of swimming against the current of the rest of society in order to remove ourselves from the belief that we have to alter ourselves to fit into the mold that our culture promotes. At the same time, the singer also touches on the areas in which Modernists labeled wrong to reveal what these thinkers were missing and lacking in their perception of the world. 

     The album opens with a fifty second a cappella introduction, “Shepherd’s Bush Lullaby” that Ben Gibbard made on his phone as he was walking through the neighborhood in London one day. It has a breathy barbershop quartet quality to it making me imagine a total of four Ben Gibbards standing before me. By eliminating all of the music and instrumentals in this piece, Gibbard’s stripped down song is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway’s plain, blunt writing style. Hemingway was a writer of the Lost Generation, an ideology of disillusionment that merged with Modernism. He turned away from any ornamental language in his works as a way of trying to find meaning amidst chaos of a new society. In this track Gibbard sings about how the person he loves is “an ocean away” back in the U.S. but he hopes that she knows he is constantly thinking of her. My one complaint is that the song really is over before you have a chance to think to really enjoy it. The topics of love and London make another appearance in the album in “Duncan, Where Have You Gone?” a piece about an old friend Gibbard hasn’t seen in a while who lives in London now. In this moody, piano-heavy song, Gibbard speaks to Duncan, assuring him “there's someone for you to love//Whom you will find in due time.” His friend running off to London could be related to how many of the writers and artists of the Lost Generation and modernist movement, including Ernest Hemingway, were expatriates who left the United States after World War I to settle in Europe.

     Overall a disappointment in the music or instrumentals unfortunately threads throughout most of the album. Both of the acoustic guitar introductions to “Lady Adelaide” and “Lily” share an uncanny resemblance to the melody in “I Will Follow You into the Dark” off Death Cab’s 2005 album, Plans. Despite my undying love and appreciation for the band’s simple classic, Gibbard’s recycling of music left me feeling rather unimpressed. In “Lily” Gibbard coos about how he wants to tell this girl how much he loves her. The singer says, “‘Cause whenever she is there with me//I know where I'm supposed to be,” which could demonstrate the extent of value that humans place on love. Love, along with many other fundamental values, was considered insignificant or unable by Modernists in terms of giving them a sense of purpose in life in the 19th and 20th century. Yet, Gibbard is promoting love as a vital part of life that is more important than what Modernists wrote it off to be. 

     In “Teardrop Windows” Gibbard pays tribute to the Seattle Smith Tower, sympathizing with the building like a dear friend about how it has been left in the dust since the Space Needle was built taller and brighter. This track begins like a big rock song with heavy bass guitar chords, but peaks from there to become more of a slow jam or a smooth rock song with little hints of folk influence sprinkled on top. Gibbard is from Washington and lived in Seattle for several years before moving to Los Angeles once he married Zooey Deschanel. The year "Former Lives" came out; however, the dynamic pair divorced after just three years. Perhaps the artist feels like a part of himself was forgotten in Seattle during the move to a more glamorous city just as the once beloved tower is now neglected standing in the shadow of the Needle. Modernism resulted partly in response to the industrialization and urbanization that was up and coming in Western society. Therefore, skyscrapers like the Seattle Smith Tower represent the growth of cities that fueled this type of new thinking. In addition, the tower was built in 1914 at the beginning of War I, an event that is considered a spark for Modernism as well. However, although Gibbard explicitly sings about the building, it is possible he is also singing about a person who is feeling “all alone” and “oh so empty.”
  In “Something’s Rattling (Cowpoke)” Gibbard sings about living “in the valley” of Los Angeles, yet the mariachi band instruments mixed with the country rhythms do not scream anything remotely close to “L.A.” or “Cali.” He describes how the city is a beautiful place but something doesn’t feel right, which could connect with the style of music not fitting the types of sounds like indie, pop, and hip hop that one might normally associate with Los Angeles. His struggles with not being able to connect with society around him correlate with the alienation and self consciousness that Modernists felt from cultural shocks like the War and a boom in societal advancements. The song shows how easy it is to find ourselves feeling lost and empty in society, whether we experience major changes in our surroundings and culture or not. It suggests the way for us to go forth and stop ourselves from being stuck in this disconnected mindset is to critically examine our life values and behaviors in relation to what values the rest of society holds true and how our peers act.

     “Bigger Than Love” sheds light on Modernism as well when Ben Gibbard reveals snapshots of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s relationship, rather than his own. Although the artist does not explictly mention the two individuals by name in the song, Gibbard revealed in an interview that he based the track on a book of love letters between the couple called Dear Scott, Dear Zelda. F. Scott Fitzgerald is also a writer of the Lost Generation like Ernest Hemingway who is known for his turbulent lifestyle apart from his famous novels. The song’s verses depict how destructive the Fitzgeralds’ marriage really was from struggling with alcoholism and mental illness to not being able to handle raising a child together. However, these lines contrast with the consistent upbeat tempo and a positive chorus that says, “It's bigger than love//Brighter than all the stars combined” gives hope that their broken love is not “beyond repair.” 
     This track is a duet, featuring Aimee Mann, which works nicely as it’s like the singers are F. Scott and Zelda telling their own story. Zelda's major presence in the song of her point-of-view shows a significant deviation for the submissive role she played in her marriage. It is said that Zelda contributed greatly to F. Scott Fitzgerald's brilliant writing, yet she never received much recognition nor was given the chance to publish more than one novel of her own. In contrast, Aimee Mann (in the voice Zelda) begins the song, and sings multiple verses by herself, almost overshadowing Benjamin Gibbard. This characteristic of the song reveals some of the faults in Modernist thinking. Although F. Scott Fitzgerald as a Modernist writer went against accepted beliefs in his writing, such as criticizing greed and money in the age of materialism, we can see through his novels and relationships that he did not challenge the ideology of women being dependent and less in society. Ben Gibbard, thus attempts to shed a new light on Modernism in terms of what Modernist artists neglected to discuss and challenge in their works.

     The last three songs of the album all seem to be about some experience of Gibbard’s love life again, most likely surrounding his divorce to Zooey Deschanel. In “Broken Yolk in a Western Sky” Gibbard uses light, country twang instrumentals to give a dark confession about messing up and accepts all the fault and blame for the falling out of his relationship. “I’m Building a Fire” ends the album in full circle, as the song is very brief just like how the Former Lives started with “Shepherd’s Bush Lullaby" at under one minute. The concluding track illustrates a picture of what seems like a past relationship as Gibbard sings, “In the morning you'll wake with the ashes of a memory//And the sun on your face and I will not seem so far away.”

     Through his direct allusions to the Seattle Smith Tower in “Teardrop Windows” and the Fitzgeralds in “Bigger Than Love”, a theme of Modernism is revealed that can be connected to the rest of the songs of the album. Gibbard transports us back to this time period and way of thinking, showing how some of the values and ideas that Modernists once promoted still are relevant in our society today while suggesting it is important for us to grow this way of thinking by investigating the topics on which Modernists neglected to change.