Sep 30, 2008
How does Coldplay get away with what puts normal guys right into marriage counseling?
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Superstars make ladies swoon by wanting to fix them, while us plebeians get told women just want to be heard.
What gives?
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i’m not sure “what gives”, but it’s a cool song!
I’m going to guess his own wife doesn’t swoon over it.
I’d say it has a lot to do with which ladies you are talking about… ladies with character don’t swoon.
Well, “spirit of this age” gets my vote. People eat up a lot of really lame stuff because it starts with a celebrity.
Make a bajillion bucks and ask that again…
As someone who is 13 years into ongoing health problems, I like the idea of being fixed. But it’s even better if I’m fixed by a kind person who knows and cares about what I’ve been through. The artist makes you think that he might be just that perfect mix of love and omnipotence.
But since only God can be all-strong and loving (Ps 62) it’s left to mortal men to do their best. My advice? Listen with all your heart, then offer the unfixable to God. Truly hearing can bring healing… and maybe even some swooning! (even without a bajillion bucks)
Hmm…and all this time I thought Chris Martin was singing to his pet in “Fix You”….*snicker*
I asked my wife – she said he must be singing to his dryer. And if I would sing to my dryer more we wouldn’t have such a large pile of dirty laundry in our room.
I think that this is one of those times where there is some epic climax, a montage of sorts, a lot of emotion and hypnotic feeling – everything is realized, love flows in streams, the movie stars kiss when they barely know each other but there is that dramatic spark saying “we belong together and I lust after you”, the night is perfect, etc, etc – what happens the next day when you realize the house is a mess and laundry has to be done?
Kind of like a card I gave my wife – And they lived happily ever after, then they had to go to work.
Story is that Chris Martin wrote this for his wife Gwyneth, who was suffering from depression after the death of her father. In that context, you can understand the desire to try to “fix” someone and make all their pain go away…
As I listened to the song (again, it’s one of my Coldplay favorites), I started thinking about the issue of fixing. For me (I’m not speaking for all women), the desire to just be heard is, honestly, based partly in pride. “I can do it myself, thankyouverymuch, and I just want you to know how annoyed/sad/worried/angry/pathetic/smart/whatever I am right now.” Sometimes I “just want to be heard” because, deep down, I just want to be able to wallow out loud in my misery. But, my husband is also my pastor – both literally and as head of our home – and he may see something about my attitude that needs to be “fixed.” A humble heart would listen. (Not saying (a) that I actually have a humble heart that listens, or (b) that Chris Martin is trying to “pastor” his wife…)
But I also agree with what Susan said, above: “True hearing can bring healing.” The song doesn’t actually specify how he plans to fix her…maybe he just means being a safe haven for her (“Lights will guide you home…”), a place where she can just be, without someone bandaiding her grief or something.
Also, the perspective could be argued that he’s giving her fair warning, and she shouldn’t come home until she’s ready to be fixed…
Most men don’t take the time to write a moving ballad about what they’ll do. Instead, they offer a solution –> problem solved.
These days, my husband tends to do the latter more than the former, though there are a few songs in his catalog that are just for me. And, yes, I did swoon the first time he sang/played them for me.
I don’t care who you are: When a man writes poetry and sets it to a sweet melody, that’s romantic!
The ladies are too distracted from the lights guiding them home and igniting their bones to get too worked up about it.
The cynicism of our day mostly sneers at attempts to fix, and is especially cynical of the desire itself…but it just keeps popping up. Wasn’t it CS Lewis that said something about there being only “One Story” in all of literature? Absent Christ there is no “Fix.” But if we stretch the term literature to include Brit-Pop (A stretch indeed) could Chris Martin be echoing some redemptive desire to fix and be fixed?
Steve, I certainly understand the desire, but isn’t it that desire that gets into trouble sometimes?
Leslie, I imagine you’re right. A song about fixing is probably going to go further than a solution and a request to stop crying.
@Steve has it right. The song was written to someone who lost her dad.
“Tears stream down your face / When you lose something you cannot replace.”
I’ve always found this song touching, even moving, especially when I consider why it was written. More than that, Rosanna and I are on a “reclamation project” (hat tip, Abraham’s dad) with Jesus to FIX our own brokenness, little by little.
I remember a coworker reacting to this song, saying, “You don’t FIX a girl. She fixes you.” THAT is the cliché, IMHO: girls are goddesses and guys are grovelers.
Trust me, the swoon won’t last…you can only do someome elses job so long before your humanity sets in and it’s all over.
Moral…abandon yourself to Jesus and learn to listen!
maybe it’s because in real life women (at least in certain circles) are never supposed to say that they secretly want to be “rescued” and all that, but when it’s put to music, it makes the idea suddenly less repulsive. even if i couldn’t imagine myself saying “yes, fix me,” i might be able to imagine some tragically beautiful girl who wants fixing. i mean, there are songs that make grown put their hands in the air like they just don’t care and put their left foot in and out. so it’s possible.
I love the male desire to fix things…to be active rather than passive, in the face of trouble. That’s why it’s all the more heartbreaking to witness a man’s realization of his own impotence when he is unable to fix the heartache of the woman he loves: “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” or “Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” I really feel for these men.
Women swoon for artists. Women swoon for men who are tops in their field.
Darwin’s sexual selection is more compelling than his natural selection, at least to me.
I love that song. I always think about God singing it to me. I agree, we all have a desire to be fixed.
I desire that my husband try to “fix” me, in a healthy, God-honoring way, of course. I don’t want my spouse to leave me to my own to help myself (which wouldn’t happen). I want to be pursued, studied, corrected, encouraged…not left to my own because of passivity.
Well, the women who are swooning over Chris Martin aren’t living with him 24/365. If they were married to him, it would probably be a different story.
um–actually I guess it would be a different song
I am not sure I know the answer but it sure is a big, beautiful song.
Kendra…GREAT comment. That is what is missing for so many people today, someone to do the things you mentioned for us for our benefit, to help us and that ultimately helps them. We are too bogged down by “personal repsonibility” in this new world, and that is not what unconditional love should be. Thanks, I wish two people I know would have understood that. One, I had asked to help me in a Godly way to fix ungodly behavior and he wouldn’t. Now, I understand why he didn’t, which is all about the self. I don’t know the song, I’ll have to listen to it.