"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!" He is alone and he's thinking about what he had become. He's seperated from his Family, (the Queen and their 3 children). That's Louis XVI in his last moments, captured in "La conciergerie", where he spends his last days before the trial. But that's too obvious and I didn't mention this part to say this, because what that catched my intention is the "now in the morning, I sleep alone". Well after reading this part, we are sure about the fact that we're talking about someone who used to rule, a king. General CommentReading again the lyrics of Viva La Vida just after ending a book about Louis XVI (Louis Vincent - and Stephan Zweig with Marie-Antointte) makes everything clear to me: THE SONG IS OBVIOUSLY HIM! I love how the poetry and literature of it bring about thought emotion and discussion! Isn't that, after all, what art is supposed to do! With the illustrations of many great governmental falls, I wonder if the writer is saying it as sort of a "warning" to the World's greatest modern day empire. It makes me wonder if the metaphor is for america in that our society has often been compared with the Roman Empire and has often been predicted to have a similar fate ahead. I will say, I don't know that much about the underlying beliefs of the Catholic faith and if the author could be potentially guilt ridden, thinking he has been so prideful and dishonest that although he now sees the error of his ways he feels there is no redemption for him, but given that there are other "old world" references and influence in this son, it does seem that it would make sense that a rock song is talking about revolutions, especially given our political times world wide that revolutions and world wide changes are often a topic of public discussion. Being a christian, I would love to believe the song is about a christian perspective, but there are too many things that don't really add up, the main one being that if the author is coming from a christian point of view, it would seem he would think that St Peter would call his name. Wow, this reply is so long after the original posting, i don't know if anyone will read it, but I agree with "the7keys" interpretation. And this fourth album is part of Coldplay's progress. Because without revolutions, there would be no progress. So, to me, this song is about celebrating revolutions of every form - political, economic, social, and especially artistic. The inclusion of instrumentals and choir-like vocals is quite a departure from their previous works. In a way, the sound of this album is a "revolution" from previous works of Coldplay. These lyrics are telling their stories from the point of view of the fallen leader, in a very poetic way, but the message is essentially "Oh, who would ever want to be king?" Because revolutions have occurred over and over in history, and they will continue to occur, but such is the story of life and of humanity. Each revolution overthrew a powerful central government, with a powerful head of state in a violent and bloody fashion (think "heads on a silver plate").
The French Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the British Civil Wars in the 17th century all come to mind when I hear these lyrics. The lyrics to this song seem to refer to revolutions in history thus far, about kings, queens, emperors, and other rulers who fall from high places after revolutions from below. General CommentGiven that this album seems to revolve around the theme of celebrating life (Viva la Vida) and revolutions (the cover art depicts the French Revolution by Delacroix), I think this song embodies the nature of revolutions. Once you go there was never, never an honest word Now the old king is dead, long live the king
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