Wednesday, September 19, 2012

To Get the Lyrics: Cold Play "Yellow"

I have a thing for lyrics. Sometimes, I can be listening to a song, and fall in love with one line.  A friend was having a conversation on Facebook a couple months ago about the song, "Yellow" by Coldplay.  She said that the lyric, "For You I'd Bleed Myself Dry" was kind of morbid, and basically, even though she liked the song, she didn't really like that lyric.
I didn't like the song until I heard that lyric!
I explained to her what it meant to me:
I've had a kidney transplant, and someone died to give me that kidney.  It's a cadaver kidney.  People don't always have to die to give their kidneys, but this person chose to donate his/her organs if the opportunity arose, which saved my life. So, that person literally "Bled himself dry" in my mind.
The other way to look at it is, for a religious person, Jesus Christ gave his blood on the cross for our sins, or he "Bled himself dry."
Look at it how you want, but to me, the lyric means, the person loves someone so much, he will die for her.
We've actually had people asking for the sheet music for this song for Weddings.  One person came in and asked for the "Christian version."  I didn't know there was a "Christian Version."
Lyrics to songs can mean something different for every person.  This is what this lyric means to me. 


1 comment:

  1. I interpreted that song with a religious meaning as well. The color yellow makes me think of the sun, which is a homonym for son, as in Son of God, ie Christ. Read this way, the song is being sung by the narrator to Jesus, and all the yellow things mentioned in the song are things that Christ had a hand in creating. The line "for you I'd bleed myself dry" is both an analogy to the death on the cross and the narrator's willingness to give his life for Jesus (both figuratively and literally).

    I'm quite certain that my interpretation is not how the author intended it, but I do find it interesting how well it fits.

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