My Life In 35 Songs, Track 6: “Fix You” by Coldplay

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When you try your best, but you don’t succeed…

I don’t have any scientific way of proving this, but I’d wager that Coldplay’s “Fix You” is the most iconic and impactful stadium rock anthem of the 21st century.

Before it ever got played in a single stadium, though, “Fix You” was something else: my first-ever heartbreak song. And to get to that particular milestone in my life, we have to talk about a hilarious subject: romantic adolescent angst.

Look, I’m sure there are some people who meet their soulmates as kids or preteens and have super cute love stories from their “awkward years.” For the rest of us, though, that stretch from whenever you discover your hormones to whenever you get mature enough to handle them is an absolute cringefest. I say all this as someone who definitely thought he was “in love” in eighth grade, and who definitely made an absolute mockery out of himself in pursuit of this supposed “love story.” Better yet, it was a “love triangle,” with the girl who I had a crush on and another classmate who also swore their “love” for her.

The entire silly affair ultimately came to a conclusion on our eighth-grade class field trip, when she chose…well, not me. At the time, it felt like a massive blow: like my first real heartbreak. But as someone who’d spent that entire school year listening to songs about heartbreak, it also felt like I was joining some exclusive club. I now had the honor of knowing what all my favorite songs were talking about, and that felt important.

“Fix You” was the song that soundtracked all this adolescent drama, and that only happened thanks to a few strokes of luck and timing. Coldplay’s third album, X&Y, released into the world on Tuesday, June 7, 2005, the very same day my eighth-grade class happened to depart for our big multi-day, overnight end-of-school trip. One of the day-one stops happened to be a shopping mall, and one of the stores in that shopping mall happened to be an FYE. And so, thanks entirely to circumstances lining up perfectly, X&Y became the first album that I ever purchased on the day it was released.

You’d think, based on that status, that Coldplay were a favorite band of mine and I’d spent 2005 counting down to the release of their hotly-anticipated third album. You’d be wrong. While I’d liked the earlier Coldplay hits – particularly “Clocks” and “The Scientist,” both from the band’s blockbuster 2003 LP A Rush of Blood to the Head – my casual liking for the band had turned mostly to scorn in the years since. That had little to do with the music itself. If I’m being honest, there has really never been a time when I heard a Coldplay song and actively disliked it. But my brother had a loud and declamatory hatred for this band, and when the older brother you idolize tells you something is trash, you’re probably not going to disagree with him.

I might have continued writing Coldplay off due to secondhand disdain had it not been for the massively popular teen soap The O.C. By this point in time, The O.C. was already legendary for its killer soundtracks, most of which revolved around hip, cool indie music selected by hip, cool music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas. In its second season, though, The O.C. had also become a haven for bigger-name artists. Bands like The Killers, Modest Mouse, and Death Cab for Cutie actually appeared on episodes, and big stars were using The O.C. as a platform to premiere new music. Beck launched his 2005 album Guero by contributing half a dozen syncs to a single episode, and U2 premiered their song “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” in the prime coda slot of a November sweeps episode.

The biggest get, looking back, was the premiere of the song that would become Coldplay’s signature anthem, and one of the most iconic songs of the 2000s. Coldplay had dropped “Speed of Sound” as the leadoff single from X&Y on May 11, 2005, prompting a mixed reception from fans and critics due in part to the fact that it sounded a whole lot like “Clocks Part 2.” “Fix You” wouldn’t be released as the official second single from the album until September, but it snagged a prominent slot in the closing moments of the penultimate episode of The O.C.’s second season, which happened to air just one day after “Speed of Sound” debuted. In the episode, the song soundtracks a mix of happy moments (a high school prom and a reconciliation of one of the show’s key couples) and sad ones (a major character death). “Fix You,” thanks mostly to its sublime emotional peak – you know the part, where the wall of guitars crashes in and heralds a cathartic sing-along bridge section for the ages – was the perfect track to underline the drama of the moment. It also kind of took the wind out of the sails for “Speed of Sound,” but that was maybe a good thing for Coldplay, since it immediately reset the anticipation machine for X&Y after the first single fell a little short of expectations.

For me, “Fix You” was a gamechanger. My skeptical ears were predictably underwhelmed by “Speed of Sound,” a song I’d eventually come around on but thought was mostly boring at the time. But “Fix You” floored me. It immediately made me forget that I was supposed to hate Coldplay, and when I saw that X&Y would be dropping the day my class embarked upon our big trip, I resolved to buy myself a copy. X&Y ended up selling 737,000 copies during its first week, Coldplay’s biggest frame ever on the Billboard charts. If I had to hazard a guess, “Fix You” and The O.C. had a lot to do with the big number.

On that class trip, I probably made it through X&Y in full 2-3 times, between bus rides and lazy time at the hotel. But man, I listened to “Fix You” at least 30 times across those three days. It just so happened that the trip, the album, and my moment of romantic rejection hit at the same time, and “Fix You” is just about the perfect song for such an occasion. Its fragile verses, gorgeous chorus, and gargantuan bridge seemed to capture my “pain” and blow it up to widescreen proportions. “When you try your best but you don’t succeed,” Chris Martin sings in the first verse. Later, it’s “Tears stream down your face/When you lose something you cannot replace.” At the time, those words felt like the most important thing in the world – and like the one thing that was keeping me from melting down.

Looking back, that entire experience is a comedy: the crush; the way I handled myself; the fact that the person who ended up “getting the girl” also ended up becoming my best friend in the world just a few years down the road, and even stood up as part of my wedding party; the fact that their “relationship” would be over three months later. All of it.

But when I hear “Fix You” now, I can’t help but smile at the beautiful naivete and ineptitude of the youthful crush I thought was love. The truth is that I didn’t know a single thing about love back then, or about what it means to give yourself completely to another person. The big dramatic story I thought I was living mostly turned out to be a cartoon version of love, without any of the dimensions or nuances. But the pain in my heart was real, and the way I felt about this song was real too. Being older and wiser has changed the way I think about that experience and those memories, but it will never change what “Fix You” meant in the moment. I’d had my first heartbreak, I got my first heartbreak song, and I wore both as a badge of honor.

Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that I’d still be hearing my first heartbreak song in every single supermarket or drugstore 20 years later. But “Fix You” has proven to be an immensely durable track, perhaps the closest my generation ever got to producing something like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Those are timeless classic rock anthems that might well outlive the human race itself, and even though it feels weird to ascribe a similar status to a song released in my lifetime, “Fix You” fits the bill. Like those songs, Coldplay’s signature song will play on the radio until the end of time. Like those songs, it will be covered by other artists and passed down for generations. Like those songs, it will surely end up soundtracking a whole lot more climactic moments in films, TV shows, movie trailers, and commercials. And for as long as Coldplay continues touring, “Fix You” will never, ever leave the setlist. And it shouldn’t. Because “Fix You” is a structurally perfect stadium rock song. Everything about it is flawlessly calibrated to send a shockwave of emotion through your entire body when those guitars kick in and the time comes for the big crowd singalong.

While they aren’t as famous in the U.S. as they were back in the summer of 2005, Coldplay remain perhaps the most comprehensively global enterprise in pop music, and it’s because songs like “Fix You” are a universal language. I mean, just watch the video below and get a load of the fans in São Paulo howling along with every word, some with tears actually streaming down their faces, some with the purest smiles of joy you will ever see. I can’t help but tear up and smile when I watch that video, because it’s a reminder of what music can do when given a truly worldwide reach. On that June Tuesday 20 years ago, I would have sworn I was the only person on the planet experiencing this song in the particular way that I did. In truth, I was probably one of millions. It’s an example of why I’ve always believed that a great song or a great concert stand a much better chance of saving the world than any religion or political movement ever could. Because what could possibly create more empathy than taking all your heartbreak, grief, pain, and joy, and shouting it out in unison with a stadium full of strangers?

Past Installments:

• Track 1: “One Headlight” by The Wallflowers
• Track 2: “Hanging by a Moment” by Lifehouse
• Track 3: “Hide” by Creed
• Track 4: “Wheel” by John Mayer
• Track 5: “Kill” by Jimmy Eat World

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