Top Rated Interpretation

powerz44 December 19th, 2008 12:17PM  
This is an analytical paper I wrote for my english class in college. It took me a while to come up with this interpretation but I think I got it pretty close. Let me know what you think about it...

Upon analysis, in the song Violent Hill, Coldplay uses symbolism and repetition to get across their political message. Coldplay references the media, religion, war, and how they are connected to substantiate their message geared towards encouraging people to wake up and recognize the misdeeds happening in the world. This is all played out through a story of a father who is a soldier at war and is questioned by his son.
Right from the beginning of the song there is a reference to snow, white snow. Why? Is it snowing out? Snow, especially white snow, covers things up and hides their true colors by pure whiteness. I believe that Coldplay is saying that ever since they can remember there has been “snow” everywhere. This is saying that deception is everywhere and almost nothing is how it seems. Then right in the next stanza he says, “clearly I can remember from the windows they were watching while we froze down below” “They” are the leaders, or theaters of influence that persuaded the father which, is now a soldier, to go to war. The soldiers are going off to war and are freezing in the “snow” down below. The snow is the leaders or theatres of influences lie that is causing only negative effects to the father and other soldiers, but not them because they are behind windows.
Coldplay first references the media in the third stanza. The song goes, “When the future’s architectured by a carnival of idiots on show, you’d better lie low”. “Idiots on show” could be several sources that basically make up our source of information. This is both the media and governments. It is sad how most people take what they hear on the news through media outlets and accept it as truth without researching anything from a different perspective. It is obvious that there is a right (conservative) and left (liberal) division of media in the United States which push their own agendas. These sources are biased and therefore not always reliable. CNN—a.k.a. Constant Negative News— pushes for a liberal world through an almost idealist philosophy. Then there is Fox news which basically uses scare tactics to frighten its listeners away from change. The problem is that these sources have an immeasurable influence not only on what news we hear, but also on how we interpret it. Therefore, the media has an immense affect on the future and Coldplay believes this is not in our best interest since they are biased.
Then the song says, “you’d better lie low”. This is an interesting first reference to something low, or below, which is repeated frequently throughout the song. This is something that people usually do not catch after listening to the song the first couple times. The reference to lying low is a sort of message from the idiots on show to not question them and remain silent. Also there is a chorus which says, “if you love me won’t you let me know”. I believe this is the sons’ plea to his father to let him know about the world as he wants to see the world through the media, religion, and war/nationalism like his father did. After the Coldplay’s reference to the media they start in with references to religion.
Next, the song says, “It was a long and dark December when the banks became cathedrals”. Banks are filled with money and people go to cathedrals to worship God. Coldplay is saying that through greed, we have become worshipers of money instead of God. After this statement that basically says people have changed and have become worshipers of money, they say, “the fog became God.” Fog is something that blurs our vision and hides potentially dangerous things from our line of sight. When they say that fog became God, they mean that today people use God and religion in general as fog to sort of justify things like war and death. This is a transition into religion which Coldplay talks about next.
Coldplay keeps singing about these different theaters that affect how we get information and how we interpret it when they sing next about religion. The song goes, “Priests clutched onto bibles, hollowed out to fit their rifles, and the cross was held aloft”. This is a reference to how religion is used today to justify violence (rifle). Priests hold onto the bible which preaches to love thy neighbor and that everyone is God’s children, while underneath the cover they say it is hollowed out to hide a rifle. This adds onto the whole using religion to justify violence and war theme. Religion has been the central cause in hundreds of wars over the centuries from the Christian crusaders to the six day Arab-Israeli war. Coldplay is basically saying that in today’s world, even religion—which is supposed to bring us salvation— is another theatre of influence that is not reliable.
Next the song goes, “Bury me in honor, when I’m dead and hit the ground, a love back home unfolds”. At this point the father is saying that he was fooled by these theatres of influence which he realizes have deceived him and brought him into this war. He believes that he will die in this war and when he does, he will not be able to shield his son from these theatres of influence that have doomed him. That is why he says when he’s dead and hits the ground, his love—which is shielding his son from these spheres of influence—will unfold. Right after this stanza the chorus of “If you love me…” starts up again. The son is obviously young and questions why his father will not let him know if he really loves him. The son wants to learn what is going on but his father does not want him to be fooled like he was.
The final theatre of influence which I hinted to above is war/military. The song goes, “I don’t want to be a soldier, who the captain of some sinking ship, would stow, far below”. At this point the father regrets his position of a soldier in the military which he believes is doomed. Again there is a reference to something at a lower level (far below). This is saying that the captain or leader of this ship (military) does not care about the safety of his/her soldiers and would station them at the bottom of a sinking ship. Then right after this the “if you love me…” chorus comes in again except the second half goes from “won’t you let me know” to “why’d you let me go?” I believe that at this point in the story the father has died from something having to do with the war and has therefore let his son go.
The last stanza before the chorus ends the song goes, “I took my love down to violet hill, there we sat in snow, all that time she was silent still”. This is the father talking about his death. He took his love which was protecting his son down to violet hill (bloody hill) where they sat in snow. They sat in the lie of the theatres of influence I mentioned earlier where they would eventually be covered by the snow. He is obviously afraid that he too will be become part of the lie that will bring more soldiers like him to die for a cause he was tricked into joining. The chorus of “So if you love me, won’t you let me know?” takes over and ends the song with just a piano playing slowly in the background.
In conclusion, the first time I heard the song Violet Hill by Coldplay I thought it was a really catchy song with little meaning behind it. But upon further analysis I was able to uncover this deep message that is hidden in every part of this song. Coldplay is able to use symbolism and repetitiveness to get across their message. Their message is that a lot of today’s world is going in the wrong direction but this wrong direction is justified or hidden by things like the media, greed, religion, and governments. They are so good at this deception that they have managed to fool people to go to war and die for their unjust cause.
People have begun to accept what they see on television or read in the newspapers as truth without questioning where this information came from and who wrote/reported it. This is unbelievably dangerous since 99% of the media is biased and incorporate their biased viewpoints into how they report the news.
Religion has become a fighting point for bloody and ruthless wars and violence, something that most religions preach against. The song talks about priests clutching bibles that are hollowed out to hold rifles. Religion is not a bad thing but Coldplay seems to argue that it is being manipulated to create conflicts and justify wars that benefit different governments or nations.
Coldplay does a magnificent job incorporating their message into their music. A seemingly shallow song has turned out to be a deep meaningful one. This is an important message to everyone to not just accept what they hear/see, but to question and analyze it to find the real meaning, exactly what the purpose of this paper is.