"I was just guessin' at numbers and figures / pulling the puzzles apart."
Poor, poor Chris Martin.
Sure, the guy might have ended up with Gwyneth Paltrow, but deep down? He's a total science dork. I mean seriously -- just look at how often the guy finds himself singing about outer space, "questions of science," and other similarly themed poindextery stuff:
"Look at earth from outer space" (Politic)"You and me are drifting into outer space" (X&Y)"All of the stars and the outer space" (White Shadows)(In retrospect, this could explain the whole "virgin until his mid twenties" thing).
But getting to the song at hand --
We've got ourselves a scientist. And not just *any* scientist, mind you -- but "THE" Scientist. As in a guy who pretty much defines his entire self through his life's work. He's brilliant, probing (heh heh heh), coldly analytical -- and dangerously good at his job accordingly. After all -- a mind for "pulling the puzzles apart" is a must-have when dealing with "questions of science." Wouldn't you agree?
Dr. Gregory House: Word, dawg.Ok -- so we've got ourselves this scientist, yes? And when it comes to solving analytical puzzles? Dude's a friggin' genius. But when dealing with matters of the heart?
Not so much.
Hmm -- a science dork who just can't seem to make sense of human relationships? Kinda' reminds me of another tortured genius with a Ph.D. from roughly 400 years earlier.
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604)By Christopher Marlowe
When it came to Elizabethan playwrites, there's no question that Billy Shakespeare was the man to beat. But if Shakespeare was the shit, then Marlowe was -- at the very least -- the urine (how's that for a colorful metaphor? Thanks, Kanye). And Marlowe's wildly controversial Faustus was pretty much the closest thing to Better-Than-The-Bard to have emerged from the whole of the 17th century.
The story is simple:
Dr. Faustus is a genius, but he's not satisfied with simply being the smartest guy in the room. Instead, he wants to be the smartest man IN THE WORLD, and so he makes a deal with the devil to trade his soul for exactly that. Mephistophilis (being the devil and all) is more than happy to agree -- and so he makes Faustus an uber-genius, but promises to steal him back to hell as per their agreement some 24 years later.
Flash forward 24 years...
Just as Mr. Fausty Pants is hitting his stride as "the smartest man in all the world," he comes across a total knockout of a ladyfriend (in the form of one Miss Helen -- of Troy fame). And whaddayaknow -- our forsaken superdork falls madly in love.
(Wanna' guess how well *that* turns out?)
How about we leave the summary to the immortal words of the good doctor himself:
"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.Ooooh, BURRRRN!!! (literally)
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"
Or as our good friend Chris Martin might say --"Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me..."
Just when you think you've got all the important stuff figured out, love comes in and changes the questions. Boy it sucks to be you, Faustus (and that goes double for The Scientist). But unlike Marlowe's hell-bound physician, Coldplay's lovesick scientist actually has a brief chance at redemption. As he sings:
In other words: when your world falls down, take a good, hard look in the mirror and get right with yourself.
"Nobody said it was easy
[but] no one ever said it would be this hard
I'm going back to the start."
Aww, that's nice.
Too bad it's blatantly cribbed from Yeats:
"Now that my ladder's gone,(Why they even borrowed the whole "heart" / "start" rhyme. How clever).
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."
- William Butler Yeats, "The Circus Animals Desertion" (1939)
Wait -- COLDPLAY?!? STEALING MATERIAL FROM OTHER ARTISTS, you say!?!
Hey, songwriting's a tough bizniss. Or, in Chris Martin's own words:"Nobody said it was easy."
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