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Coldplay's sophomore album A Rush of Blood to the Head recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and the band has been spending time reflecting on that era. The album features some memorable singles like "Clocks" and "In My Place," but perhaps its most iconic is "The Scientist." In fact, the band knew it was a song that would "forever" have a spot on their setlist before it even came out.
During a recent interview (via NME), bassist Guy Berryman recalled the first time Chris Martin played it for him. “Chris says, ‘I’ve got this song to play to you’,” he remembered. “Just on the little upright piano, he just played and sang the whole song from beginning to end, and it was kind of finished."
“We were like, ‘Oh wow, OK. That’s really great.’ I think we all felt a bit nervous because we were like, ‘Wow, this is so great. How can we add instrumentation to this?’" Berryman continued. "So, it’s just basically not to ruin it and ruin that feeling that we’d all just had from listening to that amazing song.”
“I always feel like those kinds of songs, when you don’t have to over engineer it or overthink it or try three or four different versions before you feel it’s right – you can fall in love with it or get it immediately and record it within a few hours,” he added.
Drummer Will Champion said he remembers “everything about that moment [as] clear as day,”
“When I heard [‘The Scientist’] for the first time, [it was] just like, ‘OK, that’s going to be one we’re going to play forever, for sure’,” he explained." And they weren't wrong! The track still remains a staple in Coldplay's setlist, 20 years later.