Coldplay: The Scientist Meaning
Song Released: 2002
Covered By: Willie Nelson
The Scientist Lyrics
Tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are.
I had to find you,
Tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart.
Tell me your secrets,
Ask me your questions,
Oh, let's go back to the start....
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:This is a song about a relationship with God.
Come up to meet you (in heaven)
Tell you I'm sorry (for all his sins)
Tell you I've set you apart (putting God before anything else)
Tell me your secrets (Christ has many secrets that he reveals to us once you accept him into your heart)
Nobody said it was easy (following Christ is not always easy)
Questions of science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart (if you look into your heart it will tell you that science and progress can't explain those things of the spiritual world)
Tell me you love me come back and haunt me (Jesus Christ loves you no matter what you have done, and you ask him into your heart his spirit will always live inside of you and "haunt" you for the rest of your life) -
2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:Everything is open to interpretation-it's personal. For me it has two meanings. The first is the lyrics about love and the breakup of a relationship with a girlfriend. The second meaning for me is very difficult to listen to at times. It has to do with the relationship I had with my mother. The last night when the doctor told my father and I that she would die in an hour maybe five hours (they were keeping her alive with drugs-she had a d.N.R.- her sickly body was so frail that cpr would not be possible anyway). I would walk out to the car and listen to a rush of blood to the head. Then when I felt strong enough I would go back to her room. I was in my late twenties when I had a severe problem with substance abuse. This took it's toll on my mother. Mentally, physically, financially and monetarily."running in cirles." "coming back as we were." my repeated attempts to drink like a normal person(not to mention drugs) "nobody said it was easy." trying to get back the healthy adult relationship we had. And most of all watching her take her last breath and dealing with her death. "i'm going back to the start." wishing things could go back to the way they were before the damage I caused-that she chose to endure due to unconditional love. "tell you I'm sorry." I never got the chance. " come back to haunt me." regret, remorse about what I could not change before she died. "tell me you love me." when I didn't feel I deserved it she randomly said: "I love you." shocking to me but wonderful at the same time-knowing she had forgiven me. Thats a gift that keeps me going during hard times. "you don't know how lovely you are." she was a rare slice. I have not met many people as special as she was. She was an amazing human being. One who will always be greatly missed. I could go on but I think you get the general idea.
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3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:The title of the song tells us that there is a scientist. A scientist is considered smart, someone who knows how to put things together and come up with a solution. Maybe it is him that is the scientist as he is the one who is singing, and refers to himself in the song.
(Verse 1)
"Come up to meet you,
Tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are."
From him saying he wants to say sorry, that gives us the idea that he has done the wrong and ended the relationship. The next line is a realization of how much he appreciates her.
"I had to find you,
Tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart."
He felt like he had to find her, and tell her how much he needs her in his life. He wants to tell her that it was him that set the situation and tore them apart.
"Tell me your secrets,
Ask me your questions,
Oh, let's go back to the start."
He wants her to do all the things they did before. To trust him with her secrets that no one else knows. To go back and have that reminiscent relationship and to go back to the start, to when it was good and strong.
"Runnin' in circles,
Comin' up tails,
It's only science apart."
These lyrics tell us that he's been losing his mind and pacing back and forth from the break up and that they just need to realize that it's science. They have enough chemistry to come together.
(Chorus)
"Nobody said it was easy,
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.
Oh, take me back to the start."
He's realizing that nobody ever said it was hard or easy with break ups. Maybe he has nobody to give him advice. He thinks it's a shame, a tragedy for them to move on. The last line he is asking for time to take him back to the past, and to relive the times. Or maybe start all over again, a clean slate.
(Verse 2)
"I was just guessing,
At numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart."
This shows that he was being immature, and just messing around with the relationship, not thinking before he made decisions. Forgetting the consequences of his actions.
"Questions of science,
Science and progress,
could not speak as loud as my heart."
The obvious, all the answers and question couldn't describe what he's feeling. He's in pain.
"Tell me you love me,
Come back and haunt me,
Oh, and I rush to the start."
He's imagining her being there with him, wherever he is, and her memory is so alive to him that he is almost hallucinating. Like she's his drug. He may not even want her there but her presence is haunting him. Her image just makes him want to go back to when it first began.
"Runnin' in circles,
Chasin' tails,
Comin' back as we are."
From all his thinking, he's imagining them uniting again.
(Chorus)
"Nobody said it was easy,
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be so hard.
I'm goin' back to the start."
The chorus is the same as the last, but notice that it changes in the last line. He's going back to the start now, whether that's imagining it unhealthily, or going to ask her to get back with him. But from the first lines of lyrics to the rest of the song, we get the idea that she didn't take him back.
The way he sings towards the end of the song shows his pain and that he's grieving.
Overall, I think this song is really touching and gives a real feel of regret and desperation to be with someone. Someone who doesn't feel the same as you, and you feel so alone in the situation that you end up living your life "going back to the start." It sends a message, that you should think before you make a decision and not to be a fool and get yourself into a mess that you can't get your self out of. Not to hurt yourself. -
I see the Scientist as lamenting an involuntary parting, probably as a result of death, where the singer misses the departed person, whom he or she did not treat with the caring that he wanted to,as he was going thru life. Life was busy and he lived a clinical (structured) life, with little concern for the past and only looking forward like a scientist. He never thought parting would be hard, but it was. He wants to say sorry, but its too late, as he realizes how special the departed soul was.
The singer then looks forward to reincarnation, and a new beginning, chasing his tail and going around and around. Reincarnation - 'coming back as we are' - suddenly has purpose - a shot at a new beginning. Its a comforting thought, I suppose.
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A scientist seems to be battling with himself realizing that he's lost total meaning of God when getting into science..... "questions of science.. science and progress.."
At some point he says he wants to set them apart science & his belief in God. But then ofcourse the lyricist did so good in making the double meaning of this song timing it into a possible significance of a breakup/heart'break -
I thinks it’s about someone who had an abortion and regrets it. “Science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart” and wanting to go back to the start and change what happened. Realizing what a beautiful thing was ended. Really all the lyrics work for this.
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He has joined the selected thew and recounts the journey that got him there at long last be a cause he has to be the best for the gift he has
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I have no idea if this was ever the original Intent, but when I listen it sounds like a conversation between the man and God. He has questions, and getting caught up in science and life draws him further from him. It’s about starting over to what he knows and believes and building his knowledge off there (“I’m going back to the start”)
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I think this along with Politik are two of the best songs Coldplay have written.
The scientist speaks about how all bets are out the window when you factor love into the scientific equation. You can have empirical, scientific data but love supersedes all. Love and relationships are not easy, and you can try be analytical and pick someone apart, like a puzzle, but when you fall in love, scientific reason takes a back seat and your whole world gets turned upside down, like a dog chasing its tail.. What I really love about this song is how it starts with just one instrument and gradually builds and adds extra instruments(piano.. Piano plus bass, piano plus bass plus drums, piano, bass, drums, lead guitar.... And reaches a crescendo, and then gradually removes each instrument one at a time, to end up as it started. Coming back as we are. -
For me...this song is abt me and my son. I left home when he was 11. Every year I wld drive back to see him...to find him. I was a young mother from a disfunctional family...I thought I did what was best for him at the time. I made choices I wld hv done differently today. Time passed but love remained. He’s an adult now...n I feel like...I missed it.
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They Said It can be related to any relationship.. it can be a past girlfriend.. or even the death of someone you love. Anything where you want to go back to before it all happened... back to before the breakup.. the car accident (like the video) or the illness.. anything really.
We take too many things for granted. We think things will stay the same.. but life is always changing, and one day you wake up to find what you had is gone - and you didn't really take advantage of the beautiful thing it was while it was there.
He throws in some other stuff.. because any good song also has some slight personal background, but all of the things about pulling the puzzles apart - and about chasing our tails reiterates the idea that we were distracted by things that truly weren't the real important things. We should have been focusing on that relationship - no matter who that person was.. a mom, a girlfriend, we shouldn't have assumed things would always be the same..
He's now on the other side of it - and looking back... and there's just no going back to where he once was.
It's one of the saddest songs... but it generally reiterates the idea that you don't know what you got.. til it's gone. -
It's about someone he loved but never told that he loved her. But she has passed away from an addiction now and his regrets are piling up. He wants to go back and act but it's too late. Very sad song.
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The narrator of the song is talking to God. The "start" could be his birth, his spiritual home of his soul where God resides, or both at different times in the song. "No one ever said it would be this hard" could refer to life on Earth itself. I also think the song is open for interpretation, but have a strong sense it is about a personal speaking to God.
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"Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you...
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart"
The song talks about a couple that split apart. The man makes the decision to find the woman to meet her and apologize and tell her that he needs her, because she isn't like anybody else. Or perhaps she is just different than any other relationship he's been before.
"Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start... "
He asks that she opens up to him with her secrets, and for her to ask him questions. Perhaps the reason why they broke up was because he wasn't open enough about his past and he suggests to start again by sharing their past.
"Running in circles; coming in tails
Heads on a silence apart"
He's been trying to figure out where the relationship fell short. He thought or even bet on "tails" as in a coin toss, that the relationship was something, but in reality the relationship was "heads" resulting on a silence and apart from each other.
"Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start"
He says that nobody ever told him that a relationship could ever be as hard as it turned out and wishes to start over again. Perhaps this time knowing where his mistake was he'll do things differently and make things easier. He regrets that because they couldn't make things work a good relationship was lost.
"I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science; science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart"
During the relationship he never really knew what he was doing. He just "guessed" at figuring out the girl's enigmas, dissecting her or analyzing her so he could understand her.
The questions of science are relatively easier to answer than figuring out his feelings for her, while at the same time, his heart can't say it louder and clearer enough than the facts that science and progress provide.
Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are
He wants her to tell him she loves him and seek him. He wants her to be the one who's after him and he won't hesitate this time. Hell rush to start over again. Running in circles, meaning that they will still have no clue of how to work a relationship, chasing their tails, still trying out their luck (as in a coin toss, heads or tails), going back to how they were before, the way they are, assuming he doesn't want her to change anything about her. -
It's about a man and a woman who met years before and she comes back to tell him that she love him. He doesn't know how to react at the time because she is married and has two children, but shows up out of the blue just to tell him that she loves him. Then she leaves, with her son, for the West, and he sends her this CD of this song to tell her that he wishes they could go back to the start when they first met. This is a true story.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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From me another way of interpreting this song:
I believe, the topic isn't any relationship between a man, a scientist and a woman. The song is about the divorce of religion and science. Since Descartes the human mind is divided by the human body. The scientist in this song apologizes to god for don't believing in him:
"Come up to meet you,
Tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are."
He wants to meet with god or the values god is described by.
"I had to find you,
Tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart."
Here the scientist realises that he needs god to explain the world as a functional concept.
"Tell me your secrets,
Ask me your questions,
Oh, let's go back to the start."
He wants to start again and to see the world not in just the way science thinks, but to connect both ways of thinking. Without god science is
"Runnin' in circles,
Comin' up tails,
[...]" and it's a shame for all the years they were apart:
"Nobody said it was easy,
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.
Oh, take me back to the start."
The typical "Oh" can also be seen as a direct pray to god like an "Oh Lord".
"I was just guessing,
At numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart."
Without god it's just guessing what science does and that nothing speaks louder than god in his heart:
"Questions of science,
Science and progress,
could not speak as loud as my heart."
"Tell me you love me,
Come back and haunt me,
Oh, and I rush to the start."
He prays that god will forgive him and that he is going to come back, so that science and religion can be reunited:
"Runnin' in circles,
Chasin' tails,
Comin' back as we are."
I think only in this way of interpretation, the title makes sense.
I'm sorry for my english, I am from Germany(not that I would be proud of it :D) -
Whoa whoa whoa, why is everyone getting all religious here?
basically its about someone who had a breakup with his girlfriend and he is really sad that she is gone. "come back to haunt me"
he wants to undo all the mistakes he made so that he can stay with his girlfriend
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