Speed Of Sound

Album

X&Y

Label

Capitol Records

Genre

Rock

Composer(s)

Guy Berryman;Jonny Buckland;Will Champion;Chris Martin

Entered Chart

May 7, 2005

Peak Date

May 7, 2005

Released

19 April 2005

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Capitol

This song is about being both inspired and overwhelmed. Chris Martin says that he was going through a "rocky period" when he wrote it, which makes it one of his least favorite Coldplay songs to perform live, since he associates it with that time. This debuted on the US chart at #8, which meant that Coldplay became only the second UK male group in the history of the Hot 100 to have a single debut inside the Top 10. The only other group from the United Kingdom to do so is The Beatles. Spice Girls are the only female group to achieve this feat. Chris Martin has since softened his stance on this song, but when it was first released he told Howard Stern that they didn't want to play the song in concert. "I think we just did a s--t recording," he said. "I like it, but we didn't get it quite right on record." According to The London Times from October 22, 2005, Coldplay admitted they were "trying to recreate" Kate Bush's 1985 hit "Running Up That Hill" on this song's bridge. There are some similarities between this song and Coldplay's previous hit "Clocks." The piano riff at the beginning is essentially the same as the one from "Clocks" with every second note taken out. This was the first single off the X&Y album. It made its radio premiere on BBC Radio 1. This won the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Song. It was nominated for several US MTV awards, including Video Of The Year. >> This was the first song for Coldplay to crack the Top 10 in the US. On the album X&Y, the colored blocks on the cover are arranged in a code developed in 1874. The code uses visual representations of 1's and 0's in a 5 digit sequence corresponding with particular letters of the alphabet and typographic symbols. It is considered by many to be the first truly digital form of communication and was a primary language used for telegraphy until it was replaced by Morse Code in the 20th Century. To create the code on the cover of the album the colored blocks are arranged in columns. In the left-hand column the black and gray colors are one block, the blank space below it is one block, and the red/orange, orange/green and green/blue combinations below are each one block. A colored block represents a 1 in the binary code and a blank block is a 0. Reading down, the code in the first column is 10111 which represents the letter "X." The far right column reads 10101, the code for the letter "Y." The columns in the middle represent the "&" portion of the album title. The colors have no particular meaning and are only included for aesthetic reasons. To explore the code further, check out the liner notes of the album that include a full chart of the Baudot alphabet. >> X&Y sold 464,471 copies in its first week in the UK. It topped the albums charts in 32 countries, including the US where it was the only UK album to top the US chart in 2005.

How long before I get in
Before it starts, before I begin?
How long before you decide
But before I know what it feels like?

Where to? Where do I go?
If you never try, then you'll never know
How long do I have to climb
Up on the side of this mountain of mine?

Look up, I look up at night
Planets are moving at the speed of light
Climb up, up in the trees
Every chance that you get is a chance you seize

How long am I gonna stand
With my head stuck under the sand?
I'll start before I can stop
But before I see things the right way up

All that noise and all that sound
All those places I got found
And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand

Ideas that you'll never find
All the inventors could never design
The buildings that you put up
Japan and China all lit up

The sign that I couldn't read
Or a light that I couldn't see
Some things you have to believe
But others are puzzles, puzzling me

All that noise and all that sound
All those places I got found
And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began

Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand
Ah, when you see it then you'll understand

All those signs—
I knew what they meant
Some things you can invent
Some get made, and some get sent
Ooh

And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it then you'd understand
Ah, when you see it then you'll understand