Suddenly I understand!

I write songs, I might go so far as to call myself a song writer. It is perhaps surprising, then, that I am so poor at picking up the lyrics of other people's music. Getting new music is a passion and Rowan has to put up with repeated over-playing of my latest albums. Occasionally, she'll pass an opinion or ask that I stop playing a particular CD.

Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends got a mixture of the two the other day, still less than a week after its release! Coldplay's latest album had, to be fair, been experiencing serious back-to-back outings. In the course of this discussion Rowan asked for an explanation of the title, which does seem a little long and sprawling. I couldn't give one. But last night it came to me.

I was walking to a rehearsal listening to the final track on my iPod. Suddenly I heard the lyrics: "No, I don't want to battle from beginning to end, I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge, I don't want to follow death and all of his friends." It made sense. We want life. We want hope and a future. Life that breaks the 'cycle of recycled revenge'. Tucked away at the end of an album I remain undecided about, this is a rallying cry for our future.