Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland visited the Radio 1 and XFM studios, whilst making an on-air call to Absolute Radio, to promote the new single, Christmas Lights, which was released everywhere last night at 8pm on the dot. Let us know what you thought of the track and vote out of 10 in our new poll and discussion thread in the Coldplay forum now [thanks Saketblitz]
The official site added the video to their YouTube channel which you can watch again now. You can listen again to the radio interviews by downloading them from the Multimedia forum. We hope to have the Absolute Radio and BBC Radio 6 interviews up later today.
The Telegraph were the first media source to review the new single. They positively wrote: "But the big one is surely Coldplay’s much anticipated return with “Christmas Lights” (which will be released on iTunes today at 8pm). If anyone can craft an old fashioned Christmas anthem, it’s Chris Martin, and he is taking no prisoners. Like The Killers offering, the mood is caught between doubt and reverie, but when the chorus gets going it brings to mind the ageless folkiness of Paul McCartney’s Mull Of Kintyre. “May all your troubles soon be gone,” sings Martin, to ringing pianos and swooning strings...
“Oh Christmas lights, keep shining on.” It may be formulaic and sentimental, but it has a real warmth and spirit to it, a kind of log fire singalong quality that makes it first real contender for Christmas classic status that I have heard in many years. It is, in keeping with the spirit of the age, a strictly non secular Christmas record. The band perform in a theatre, beneath the Latin inscription, Credo Elvem Etiam Vivere… which translates as I Believe Elvis Lives.
The American Songwriter website wrote: While a recent study shows that the least amount of breakups occur on Christmas, a December 25 split is the subject of Coldplay’s new holiday song. “Christmas Lights” follows a freshly-single narrator remembering the reason for the season by going to Oxford Street, London’s largest shopping district. Spoiler alert: there is no solace to be found in shop windows, because “when you’re still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all.”
The video features the band performing in front of a vaguely Méliès/Smashing Pumpkins/The Mighty Boosh-like backdrop of the moon. Violin-playing Elvis impersonators sashay across a velvet-curtained stage, and the morose lyrics are counterbalanced by large quantities of confetti, balloons, and pyrotechnics. Considering that Martin sings “Got all kinds of poison in my blood,” we can only hope that Santa doesn’t bring young Apple and Moses any toys with lead-based paints.
Meanwhile, Just Jared, the website that was one of the first to capture photos of Coldplay recording the video and also the people on the Erasmus boat, said: "We adore everything about this video — from the colorful piano to the the “waves” and the balloons to fireworks! 'Still waiting for the snow to fall,” Chris Martin croons. “It doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all.'"
Christmas Lights lyrics:
Christmas night, another fight
Tears we cried a flood
Got all kinds of poison in
Poison in my blood
I took my feet
To Oxford Street
Trying to right a wrong
Just walk away
Those windows say
But I can't believe she's gone
When you're still waiting for the snow to fall
Doesn't really feel like Christmas at all
Up above candles on air flicker
Oh they flicker and they float
But I'm up here holding on
To all those chandeliers of hope
Like some drunken Elvis singing
I go singing out of tune
Saying how I always loved you darling
And I always will
Oh when you're still waiting for the snow to fall
Doesn't really feel like Christmas at all
Still waiting for the snow to fall
It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all
Those Christmas lights
Light up the street
Down where the sea and city meet
May all your troubles soon be gone
Oh Christmas lights keep shining on
Those Christmas lights
Light up the street
Maybe they'll bring her back to me
Then all my troubles will be gone
Oh Christmas lights keep shining on
Oh Christmas lights
Light up the street
Light up the fireworks in me
May all your troubles soon be gone
Oh Christmas lights keep shining on
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