9 - Coldplay – “Strawberry Swing”

“Strawberry Swing” sounds like a twirling playground, a celebratory revel in the sunshine of Chris Martin's “perfect day”. It is a simple love song, as the narrator sees the world uniformly going by and asks his lover to “curve away” from all of the people “moving all the time/inside a perfect straight line”, but the sentiment is bolstered by a militaristic drum pounding a march in the background, surprisingly needly guitars and later the Hispanic rhythms the band claimed were such an influence on the recording process. The listeners of Last.fm weren't perturbed by the track though, and have taken to the track despite it being buried deep in Viva la Vida...'s tracklist.

Opening with the handclaps and, if you listen carefully, complaints of Brian Eno “Strawberry Swing” is one of the calmest moments on Viva la Vida..., a release of tension after the grandiose punch of “Violet Hill”. Martin has noted in interviews the titular debt to The Beatles (I wonder what fields the swing is located in?), and by stripping away his often oblique lyrical references there is something of the original Fab Four channelled in the track.