Coldplay – 42

Viva la Vida, 2008: three movements, no chorus, ninth try named 42

Piano and strings open quietly, close to rehearsal volume. The tempo then changes, Jonny Buckland’s guitar comes in, and the last section stacks loops, drums, and more piano. 42, from Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008), leaves the usual verse-chorus shape. There is no chorus to sing back on a first listen. The band had spent about two years trying to finish a song without verses or chorus. This was the take that finally worked.

Brian Eno shaped the album sessions, pushing the four toward colour and risk rather than another polished radio copy. By late February 2008 they were mixing in their North London headquarters while Eno had briefly left for U2 work. Rolling Stone caught Chris Martin calling Buckland back to recut guitar after someone said the middle of 42 sounded like Radiohead. “There’s nothing wrong with sounding like Radiohead,” Martin said. “It’s just, when I hear it in my head, that’s not how it sounds.” He told MTV the title was his favourite number, and that every failed attempt at the same idea had also been called 42. Buckland used an ostrich tuning, all strings to F, which gives the middle section a tight, unusual sound.

A live take from Madrid in 2008 landed on the free live album LeftRightLeftRightLeft the following May. On the Viva tour the song sat near the front of the set: piano first, then the rock middle, then the stacked ending that needed the PA to stay clear. Television slots such as Later… with Jools Holland put the three-part shape in front of a studio audience that had to follow the turns without a chorus to lean on. Buckland’s middle section still uses the ostrich tuning, every string set to F.

Buckland described the three-part shape as intentional: no chorus, just sections that change pace and volume. Death-and-afterlife lyric fragments sit over a rhythm that does not settle on a tidy pop chorus. Festival sets sometimes played the middle section on its own.