Behind The Lyrics: Who did Chris Martin write Coldplay's Fix You about?

Chris Martin was the first to sit down and play the large synthesiser.

Bruce Paltrow, a US film director and producer, had bought the keyboard for his daughter, Oscar winning actress, Gwyneth.

Yet, it remained untouched until the Coldplay singer plugged it in. As he played, songs poured out, including the smash hit, Fix You.

Martin and the Shakespeare in Love star met in 2002 back stage at a Coldplay gig, just three weeks after, Bruce died following health complications in Italy. He was 58.

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In the early days of their relationship, Martin and Paltrow bonded over music, with the English singer songwriter's own work part of her healing.

One song in particular stood out for the GOOP founder - Everything's Not Lost off Coldplay's 2000 debut album, Parachutes.

"He wrote this song before I met him, and I think another reason it's sad for me is my father had just died when this album came out, and we used to listen to it kind of on repeat...especially this song at the end," Paltrow said in an interview on the Sirius XM satellite radio show My Favorite Song with John Benjamin Hickey.

"This album was kind of getting my brother and I through that death."

Martin and Paltrow married in 2003 and welcomed two children, Apple and Moses.

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A year later, Martin was back in the recording studio with Coldplay bandmates Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, Will Champion and Phil Harvey.

It was a tumultuous time for the group. They were battling against inner turmoil and their manager, Harvey, had taken a hiatus for health reasons.

Faced with the emotional upheaval, Martin wrote Fix You.

It's a song that holds a double meaning for the singer – wanting to aid both his bandmates and his then wife's recovery from pain and grief.

"Fix You was about him trying to put me back together after my dad died," Paltrow said about Martin in an interview on The Howard Stern Show. "I think it's pretty nice."

''I weep every time I hear it,'' Gwyneth's mother, Blythe Danner, said.

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The Yellow singer wrote the song on an electronic keyboard his father-in-law bought before his death. It features on the band's third studio album X&Y released in 2005.

"No one had ever plugged it in. I plugged it in, and there was this incredible sound I'd never heard before," Martin told USA Today.

"All these songs poured out from this one sound. Something has to inspire you, and something else takes over. It's very cloudy."

To this day, the song is the one Martin is most proud of.

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"I don't think it's the best, but for me, it's Fix You. Because it's so unlikely that that song would have come out of that period," he told Mojo in June 2024.

"The rest of that album [X&Y] I like, but I don't think it's great. Whereas that song… it's the best one because it almost single-handedly got us through a really difficult two years.

"You could say it's too soft or whatever, but… it does exactly what it says on the tin. Even when I'm singing it, by the time I get to the end, I'm thinking, "I like this."

A live performance of the song was made historic this week when Coldplay re-teamed with Canadian actor Michael J Fox for their headlining gig at Glastonbury 2024.

The Back To The Future star, who battles Parkinson's disease, surprised festival fans when he took the stage with the band, performing guitar on the track.

As the 63-year-old played, Martin sang 'Go Michael, go' before switching to 'Go Johnny, Go' - referencing Fox's iconic film scene performing Chuck Berry's Johnny Be Goode.

It wasn't the first time Fox and the band have shared a stage.

The actor riffed with Coldplay back in 2016 on the Berry classic during one of the band's US shows in New York.

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