Coldplay: Trouble Meaning

Song Released: 2000

Trouble Lyrics

Oh no, I see,
A spider web is tangled up with me,
And I lost my head,
The thought of all the stupid things I said,
Oh no what's this?
A spider web, and I'm caught in the middle,
So I turned to run,
The thought of all the stupid things I've...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   May 5th 2008 !⃝

   I think it's about a person who wants to say "excuse me" to somebody. I think it's a very close person, probably even a family member. He winds in his arguments, shown with the picture of the spider web he can't escape. He is very sorry about what he did and is helpless with his feelings.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 23rd 2014 !⃝

   This song reminds my of a story my friend once told me, "A young man just committed a crime and is running away from the police. When he loses them he finds himself at his high school track. He thinks he sees an old neighbor and true to talk to him but realizes that the neighbor is like a ghost. Then the man remembers the last time he saw that neighbor, he accidentally hit him with his car, killing him. Thinking he could apologize for what he did, the man said sorry. The ghost looked at him and said, 'Run'
   
   The young man then heard a noise and saw a bunch of spirts of people he betrayed, cheated, and lied to. He then went around the track apologizing to everyone and having flashbacks of all of his wrong doings, making sending them down the path of death or the path of anti-social or the path to the worst life ever. When he was done he tried to find his neighbor to ask him what to do next, but the neighbor was gone and all the sprits were clustering together and now running. The young man, finding it hard to go against them, ran with them. Then he heard a cop car siren but dud nothing about it.
   
   He was too mesmerized to even stop to get off the track let alone think. He hears the cop car stop, doors open and guns cock yet he still ran with the crowd. He heard the cops telling but ignored them. Soon the sprits speed slacken and their run turned back to a walk. That's when the young man really noticed the cops but walked with the sprits like he was one of them. It wasn't until he felt a sharp pain in his back and his feet trip over one another making him fall that he realized that regrets can really come back to bit you in the butt. But before his eyes closed for the last time, he saw his neighbor, he ran over with his car, shacking his head mumbling, 'What have you done' then walking away.
   And those words stuck in his head until he closed his eyes, watching ghost feet walk on him like he was apart of the track.
3. anonymous

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   Mar 13th 2017 !⃝

   To me this song is about unintentionally hurting someone, apologizing and not being able to gain their forgiveness. Coldplay explains how it can cause you to become so tied up in emotions that it becomes symbolic through a spider web. It can consume us when we make mistakes and all you can do is ask for forgiveness and it is up to that person to understand forgive you.
4. annaluvslynx

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   May 28th 2012 !⃝

   I love this song - it's so incredibly beautiful. One of the best for certain.
   
   I think the song is about someone who said things they regret - it has hurt others. They are stuck in a tricky situation and is digging themselves into a deeper hole. He can't get out of it.
   
   like this song.
5. anonymous

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   Sep 17th 2011 !⃝

   In this song a spider web is used to portray the artist's feelings. The spider web represents guilt from a past relationship with someone. He says "A spider web is tangled up with me... the thought of all the stupid things I said". Regret has come over him about the things he has said or done to this person. His feelings seem complex, making it appropriate to use a spider web with so many different patterns to express the dilemma in his heart. His main point, which he says six times throughout the song, is that he "never meant to cause you trouble... [he] never meant to do you harm". Now he is left with this "spider web" of regrets for this person.
6. anonymous

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   Nov 12th 2010 !⃝

   I think that it is about all those things in life that lead to another, but in this case, bad ones. Just think about those lyrics...."I see a spider web is tangled up with me" and "I thought of all the stupid things I'd said/done". We mess up in life, which causes trouble, which leads to sadness. Things cannot always be fixed. But we can try our best to soften up the situation.
   
   Coldplay's music is beautiful in each and every way. I love you, Coldplay.
7. anonymous

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   Jun 2nd 2010 !⃝

   According to Coldplay vocalist Chris Martin, he wrote "Trouble" as a result of his own behavior. He recalls, "There were some bad things going in our band ... the song is about behaving badly towards somebody you really love and I was certainly doing that to some members of the band." He added that he supposed it was about time to act of a knobhead.[1] The four members of Coldplay co-wrote "Trouble"
   
   -- Source = Wikipedia
8. anonymous

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   Jun 2nd 2010 !⃝

   According to Coldplay vocalist Chris Martin, he wrote "Trouble" as a result of his own behavior. He recalls, "There were some bad things going in our band ... the song is about behaving badly towards somebody you really love and I was certainly doing that to some members of the band." He added that he supposed it was about time to act of a knobhead.[1] The four members of Coldplay co-wrote "Trouble"
9. EmmaBee

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   Sep 4th 2009 !⃝

   AGreed, that the beauty of coldplay is their songs can be interpretted in all sorts of ways depending on the individual. To me the song has always been about someone being tangled up in a web. He's thinking of how he got there(all the stupid things i've done). Anything trapped in a spider web is utterly trapped and helpless so now that he's there in the middle of it unable to run he wants to say he never meant for any of this to happen, never meant for it to end up this way, and never expected to be trapped here(in the web). Then the last part has two meanings to me:
   1) By ever coming across this person's path they've helped create the web he's now trapped in.
   2) They had it all planned out and put him in situations where he'd have to lie and get tangled and now that he's there and helpless he basically is saying how he never meant to hurt them or do them wrong and he's sorry if he did and that's why they've "spun a web" for him to become trapped in. Maybe an admittion that he didn't mean to, but he perhaps did and he's sorry and now all he can do is observe his trapped self.
10. lost1213

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    Jun 8th 2009 !⃝

    The beauty of Coldplay's songs lies in the fact that it's too personal it may have a different meaning for anyone. It depends on who listens to it. The first time I heard it I was falling for someone who do not feel the same for me. "Trouble" can be the "awkwardness" and the "embarrassment" that person felt just being the object of my affection. LOL And so I say "I never meant to cause you trouble, I never meant to do you wrong" because I must have told someone else about how I felt and then my secret became "public"
11. anonymous

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    May 9th 2008 !⃝

    Well its all metaphorically but the spiders got him in trouble and in the end they get him out.
12. anonymous

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    Feb 15th 2008 !⃝

    The narrator looks back in hindsight at all the turmoil he caused from one lie.
13. Deckard88

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    Sep 12th 2006 !⃝

    I have to agree. Its a very nostalgic song. It's the first song I heard when I entered mjsc kch which is 1 of the worst boarding schools on earth. Can't believe I'm through with it. Trouble, that is what I experienced back then and I have grown now
14. anonymous

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    Aug 17th 2006 !⃝

    This is such a beautiful song. In my opinion, one of their best. It makes me think of a person reflecting back on a past relationship:
    "I lost my head, the thought of all the stupid things I said"
    
    is a lovely line, gives you the impression of a person in anger and heartache but then later regreting things that were said.
    
    "spider web and I'm caught in the middle" shows that this particular person is maybe in some sort of sticky situation and he/she feels completely torn and in two minds, with not a clue on what to do. It's a song of guilt and passion,
    "I never meant to cause you trouble"
    again, says everything, I love you too much to have caused you so much trouble.

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