“It’s now the 26th of June 1998. By the 26th of June 2002, The Coldplay, or the band, whatever they’re called then, will be known just all over man. Guy, Will, John and Chris. Don’t you forget it. Massive! Absolutely huge!,” declared Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
“Chris was like this massive ball of energy and hair, I remember very long hair, quite unlike anyone I’d ever met,” said bassist Guy Berryman.
By 2013, Coldplay had released five studio albums, selling over 45 million copies. The band completed five major tours, attracting over 8 million fans at over 600 shows, generating over $500 million in ticket sales.
Their fifth tour, the Mylo Xyloto Tour, ended on December 31, 2012 at Barclays Center in New York City. It was supposed to continue onwards to Latin America, but was cancelled on January 13, “due to circumstances beyond our control.”
“Towards the end of the Mylo tour, it was a very difficult period for about a year or so of feeling completely worthless and nothing to anybody. I was just like, ‘I’m a mess really because I can’t enjoy the great things around me.’ Then, of course, I went through a breakup with Gwyneth,” said Martin.
“It was evident that things were very difficult for Chris and that he was unhappy. We sort of felt helpless in a way, you know, naturally it’s distressing when your friend is going through something so traumatic,” stated Coldplay drummer Will Champion.
“He was in a lot of pain. Your mind can go to the worst case scenario. I was worried about him to the extent that I was just really glad to get a text in the morning just to know he was OK,” stated Phil Harvey, Coldplay’s creative director, and the band’s unofficial “fifth member.” “Almost when he was at his absolute lowest, that was when we started making Ghost Stories.”
Before releasing Ghost Stories on May 19, 2014, Coldplay codenamed the album ‘Project Odysseus’ to mirror Martin’s journey through heartbreak and renewal. Just as Odysseus faced a long, challenging voyage home in Homer’s Odyssey, Martin described the Ghost Stories era as a personal “journey from ultimate loneliness to ultimate togetherness” following his “conscious uncoupling” from Gwyneth Paltrow.
“Although it starts off seeming like a heartbreak record, it’s actually not. It’s a joyful realization,” said Martin. “You can’t escape what life is going to throw at you, so just enjoy it. You know, like when you go to the gym, it’s like, I have to do an hour on the treadmill, and you’re looking for any excuse not to do it. I don’t want to do it, I feel a bit sick, you know, I’ve got, I’m late. But then after you do it you’re like, I’m so glad I did that. That’s what the album is. It’s basically 42 minutes on an emotional treadmill.”
Ghost Stories has nine deeply personal and introspective songs that persistently loop through emotions, similar to the flow of an infinity symbol. Only one, “A Sky Full of Stars,” song eight, breaks the cycle.
“A Sky Full of Stars” arrived when Martin needed it and was the final song to be written for Coldplay’s sixth studio album. At concerts, it’s a bright spot as tens of thousands of wristbands ignite in unison and the audience becomes one all-encompassing star.
“There were lots of songs written, but the way that we, and I, wanted to put it together was to be the journey from looking at everything you’re going through in your life, be it good or bad, or whatever, and thinking, ‘Am I going to run away from it? Am I going to blame someone for it? Am I going to deny it? Am I going to self-medicate?’ Or is there a way that, by really opening yourself right up to it, that you might actually get to a more joyful place,” said Martin. “Up to a certain point in my life, I was not completely vulnerable, and it caused some problems. If you don’t let love really in, then you can’t really give it back. So for me, what Ghost Stories means is: you’ve got to open yourself up to love. And if you really do, of course it’ll be painful at times, but then it will be great at some point. You have to trust the universe. And so by the end of the record, it’s getting to a more, ‘okay, things are going to be okay.'”
“In my brain I was like, we don’t have Track 8, we don’t have Track 8. Like, the release, the euphoria, the like, okay, I understand what I’m supposed to be understanding, which is that life is beautiful in all its colours, even the darker ones. They’re here for a reason. I get it. And so I was like, I wish I could get a song where I could express that I get it, okay, and let’s just celebrate the good moments while they’re happening and be grateful for everything. And then I was at the piano and this song just like fell out, just came right through,” stated Martin. “‘A Sky Full of Stars’ came out about 11:30 at night… and came out in about seven minutes.”
At the time, Martin was listening to a lot of Katy Perry and noticed her songs are built around the same chord sequence throughout. It led him to a realization. “All these other people that have done that, Nirvana being a classic example. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ it’s the same chord sequence basically the whole time. So there’s a simplicity to that. I was like, I need to find a sequence that I could just play for ages and ages and ages, and then one just came out. I was like, that’s it, that’s it,” said Martin.
“I went and I did the demo in Los Angeles. And I only just recently met Tim, Avicii Tim, I thought he was just wonderful, and I sent him just this demo of singing and the chords,” said Martin. “But in terms of ‘I’d really like to jump up and down to this,’ we really don’t know what we are doing. So let’s call Avicii.”
“And I promise you, within four hours, he sent me back our biggest hit single of all time. What he sent me was too good so we spent six months ruining it and making it worse, and then we made it better,” recalled Martin.
The song was co-written and co-produced with Avicii in late 2013. While the song has an electronic dance sound, Martin says “A Sky Full of Stars” is EDM, and for him that means “Emotional Dance Music.”
“That song really ended up being inspired by EDM, which some people turn their noses up at. But then you go and see an EDM thing, and people are so together, and having the best time, so I was like, ‘fuck it,’ I love that stuff so I wanted to have a song that comes from that world,” stated Martin.
“I just wanted it to finish on a message of unconditional love and how you can have a better life if you can aspire to that, not that we ever achieve it entirely, but if you try and learn to love everything that happens to you,” said Martin. “Everything that happens to you is what’s supposed to be happening to you, so just relax. And that’s kind of what we tried to get to at the end of the record.”
“I love that it’s come out of this dark place… We’ve got all these other songs going through this journey, and we need this like a door opening to the sunrise,” recalled Martin. “It’s the most important song we’ve ever had, lyrically, because every time I sing it, I’m like, yeah, that’s how I wanna live my life.”
The Incredibles and Avicii
Chris Martin originally wrote “A Sky Full of Stars” as a piano ballad, but when Avicii heard Martin’s request to have the same chord sequence throughout, he looped the piano riff and lifted the song into something euphoric. Martin stated Avicii “came in like a thunderbolt. Have you ever seen The Incredibles? You know the kid, Dash? Avicii was like Dash. He would do things so quickly that you wouldn’t be able to see it. I’d done the piano and the vocals. The next morning, I received a fully formed EDM banger on my phone from him — like, done. It was incredible. And then we, being Coldplay, spent three months trying to marry that sound with the sound of the band to make something that was different to just straight-up EDM.”
After a few months’ break from the Mylo Xyloto Tour, the Ghost Stories sessions began in early 2013 at Guy Berryman’s house in London, where the band set up a small studio and started writing and playing together. They then moved into The Bakery and The Beehive studios in North London, before completing final work in Los Angeles. It was during these sessions that “A Sky Full of Stars” took shape.
The band first previewed the album by releasing “Midnight” on February 25, 2014. The official lead single, “Magic,” was released on March 3.
Coldplay previewed Ghost Stories for a crowd of 800 people on Friday, March 21, 2014 at Sony Studios in Culver City, California. On this night, “A Sky Full of Stars” was performed for the first time live. Steve Appleton of Rolling Stone was in attendance, recalling, “‘A Sky Full of Stars’ began with a swell of pre-recorded sounds, as Martin looked up, bouncing on his heels, and sang with increasing excitement. The tune ended with geysers of star-shaped confetti shooting into the air, falling like snowflakes, as Martin sang the closing line, ‘Such a heavenly view.'”
The single, “A Sky Full of Stars,” came out May 2 and gained attention ahead of the album release. On May 12, Coldplay announced, “You can now stream Coldplay’s new album, Ghost Stories, in full – for free – on iTunes,” stated the band. “Just click the Featured Video to stream the whole album accompanied by Truck Animation’s stunning, full-length animation of Mila Fürstová’s Ghost Stories artwork. Ghost Stories is released worldwide on 19 May.”
When the album was released, Billboard wrote and highlighted “A Sky Full of Stars” in its review, stating, “The marital split and its timing hover over Ghost Stories, a short album full of straightforward meditations on heartbreak and helplessness. Every inch of the album is bruised. By contrast, Ghost Stories is devoid of big moments, save for the Avicii collaboration ‘A Sky Full of Stars,’ which showcases the DJ-producer’s pulsating keyboard riffs and pummelling beat drops. But even that flare-up is punctuated by Martin’s raspy howl in the chorus: ‘I don’t care, go on and tear me apart/I don’t care if you do.'”
Lyrically: A Sky Full of Stars
When writing songs, Martin often starts with song titles and inspiration usually strikes around 11:00pm. For Ghost Stories, Martin stated, “these songs are very much my friends, and they have been for a couple of years as they’ve been coming. So I feel very grateful for them because, like I said before, no one really knows where songs come from. And for all the technique in the world, sometimes you just don’t get any good ones. And I just feel like, wow, I got sent some really nice ones.”
The lyrics of “A Sky Full of Stars” tell a story of unconditional love.
‘Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars
I’m gonna give you my heart
‘Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars
‘Cause you light up the path
The opening lyrics express a vast, open love, one that makes life brighter simply because the person exists in it. Even on a cloudy, rainy, or dark night, the world is lighter with them around. Martin said that with “A Sky Full of Stars” he wanted to reveal “life is beautiful in all its colours, even the darker ones.” “I’m gonna give you my heart” signals a willingness to give love completely and without condition. “You light up the path” takes that further, this person isn’t just a comfort, they’re a guide.
I don’t care, go on and tear me apart
I don’t care if you do, ooh-ooh, ooh
‘Cause in a sky, ’cause in a sky full of stars
I think I saw you
These lyrics match Martin’s theme of working through challenges and show a willingness to face pain in order to feel whole. Martin stated the overall theme of Ghost Stories is “an album about heartbreak, but it’s not saying that something’s broken, so you should just give up. It’s saying something’s broken, so let’s work out how to fix it and make it better than it was before.” The position is clear: regardless of the hurt, the response is love.
‘Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars
I wanna die in your arms, oh, oh-oh
‘Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark
I’m gonna give you my heart, oh
The devotion to the other person continues with “I wanna die in your arms.” These lyrics express unconditional love. “‘Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark” then uses light and darkness as a metaphor for empathic understanding, regardless of what life brings. The repetition of “I’m gonna give you my heart” isn’t filler. It’s a promise.
‘Cause you’re a sky, you’re a sky full of stars
Such a heavenly view
You’re such a heavenly view
Yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh
The final verse closes with ‘Such a heavenly view / You’re such a heavenly view,’ suggesting that looking at this person feels like looking at something divine, almost spiritual.
“Everyone in their life is given challenges that you either meet or you don’t. And what we decided to do on Ghost Stories was to really be honest about it and say, okay, this is what’s been happening. And by the time there’s a song called ‘A Sky Full of Stars,’ that’s like, okay, just approach everything with love and see what happens. Don’t worry too much,” said Martin.
The cover art for Ghost Stories follows a similar path. The idea came when Martin saw an etching by artist Mila Fürstová. “There is a piece I have made called ‘Blue Dream III‘ of an angel and the wings, and Chris was drawn to them. And he said, ‘look, I like the wings. I like the fact that they create a heart shape, just a broken heart,'” stated Fürstová. “And it was an absolute stroke of genius from him as well because by giving me the framework of the wings, he also gave me freedom to work within them. And the band had given me the lyrics, and the songs and music. I drew the wings on my metal plate, which is how you work with etching, and then I intuitively drew the other things on gradually whilst listening to the songs. So each element within the wings kind of respond to some part of the music.”
“I don’t feel the need to praise or defend it. It’s just something that we had to do in the line of our albums, so I don’t really think about the reception to it,” said Martin. “I just felt like, well, I’m not gonna be scared of saying anything. And it was nice to have a journey to sing about… I don’t really want to sing anything that I don’t really mean.”
“I write music as a diary. I write it to survive and to make sense of everything. It’s a gift that I’m so grateful for, more and more and more. I love it. I love my job. I can’t believe I’m in my band, because otherwise I would be on a ferry just playing Elton John,” said Martin.
“A Sky Full of Stars” peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is a staple at Coldplay’s concerts, a euphoric wristband-synced closer that unifies people and makes them whole for 4:27.
