What does The Scientist mean?

Coldplay: The Scientist Meaning

Album cover for The Scientist album cover

Song Released: 2002


Covered By: Willie Nelson


Get "The Scientist" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

The Scientist Lyrics

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.

Tell me your secrets,
Ask me your questions,
Oh, let's go back to the start....

  1. anonymous
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    Feb 15th 2011 !⃝

    its obviously about god and how he is losing his faith....think about it

  2. anonymous
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    Feb 3rd 2011 !⃝

    This song is one of the best songs i believe i have heard ever, i believe that it is all about a breakup and how you dont really mean to do it and wish you could take it back, i just got out of a relationship and this song explains it all i wish i could go back to the beginning and how things used to be. It makes me cry everytime. When it says 'come up to meet you tell you im sorry you dont know how lovely you are. I had to find you, tell you i need you, tell you i set you apart. Makes me think that the statement that im sure we have all heard of which is' you never really know how good something is until its gone.' Is nothing but a 100 percent true. You break up with someone and you didnt at that moment know how good it was, there is always hard parts but usually more good then bad and you need to look into the good and dont loose sight of it. If you look to much into the bad and get all caught up you will do something you regret.

  3. Sean Dwyer
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    Jan 24th 2011 !⃝

    It's about my parents' divorce and my break up in the same time frame. thats what it means for me, not for you.

    Regardless of the artist's intentions for the song/poem (whatever you're interpreting), once down on paper, or in this case in sound waves we purchase, it becomes yours, mine, everyone's. everyone is free to have their own interpretation based on how the work makes them feel and how it resonates with their life experiences. so figure it out for yourself. what does it mean to you?

  4. anonymous
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    Jan 8th 2011 !⃝

    This song is very near to my heart, because it reminds me exactly of a situation in my life. I felt like my relationship was going in circles, like there was nothing but fighting. I knew in the back of my mind that my relationship could'nt last forever, for multiple reasons. I really thought too hard in the relationship, like "guessing at numbers and figures," instead of just living. However, I deeply loved the guy, and I let myself get more and more attatched. When it says "nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard," it reminds me of when all my friends told me that I needed to end the realationship, and I didnt, because I figured it wouldn't be hard to lose him. For the longest time after we had finally fallen apart, I just wanted to go back to the start, and live the whole relationship differently, to take it seriously. I wanted to go back and tell him he really was incredible, and that I need him, and just apologize. Sometimes I still do.

  5. anonymous
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    Dec 9th 2010 !⃝

    There are so many perspectives and ways you can take this song. Some people think it's about a faulty relationship, some people thinks it's just about wearing your seatbelt. I think it's a lot more profound than that.
    With this song, I think it's entangled with love, but as you listen to it, you can almost feel the guilt he's expressing. The video is a main part in this song too, because it tells the story. Basically, he blames himself for the car accident, so like all of us in some point in life, he wants to rewind back time s that won't happen...
    But he dies too, after the girl. That's where people get confused, because he just gets up and walks away. But, of course, he'd be injured if he was alive. He's dead but that is almost oblivious to him because he just feels guilty about the girl dying because he thinks it's his fault. One of my personal best lines from this song is:
    "And it's such a shame for us to part."

    It's like, because they're both dead, he reckons he'll go to hell because of what he thinks is his fault. If you watch the video he's actually dead and it's his spirit wanting to relive the past. It's very confusing and innovative, but that's what I love about this song.

  6. anonymous
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    Nov 12th 2010 !⃝

    hey i doubt that anyone one will read this, but ill post it up anyway, im a 15 year old boy canadian of ethiopian descent, and i loe this song, soo much that i even quesiton myself why sometimes, this song has no one interpretation, as it over thousands, this has soo many different means deep inside of it, each one of use aqquiring a new meaning from it, this summer, a girl i hardly knew left, to a new country, i realised i hardly knew this girl, however we decided to get close in summer, and i started to love this girl, when she left i was absolutly heart broken, thats the long story short, and when i like someone, i feel that almsot every poiece of music reminds me of that person, idk if its the same with you, and when i came along this song, i just felt that my emotions created a song, and it was this, the scientist symbolizes loss, in anyway, wheater your mom died, or your dearest freind has moved, it always makes me cry and im a guy, this song always puts me in a dreamy limbo sort of state, i dont want to bore you all but this is how this song makes me feel....

  7. anonymous
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    Nov 8th 2010 !⃝

    The meaning of this song I think, is a very simple one...its about love,loss and dealing with the regret of things left unsaid....maybe break-up but I think probably a death, could have been a spouse, child, parent, sibling, best friend, grandparent almost anyone you love. What sets a great song like this apart from the ones just sound "great", is the fact that when you listen to it, it touches you, moves you...captures every emotion you felt during a difficult time so accurately that you almost feel like someone read your mind and wrote your thoughts down. Truly a great song

  8. Kirstyboo
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    Oct 26th 2010 !⃝

    So i've just read a long list of interpretations.
    No, i don't think this song is about a breakup.
    I don't want anyone to say this is wrong, afterall, lyrics mean differant things to differant people depending on certain situations etc.
    But here's the thing.
    I believe this song is about a man.
    He loves his girlfriend very much.
    I don't think he takes her for granted at all.
    But, she dies.
    And he maybe blames himself.
    He can't stop thinking about it, he's grieving, he can't figure out what went wrong, why she was taken from him, why her? WHY HIM?
    He regrets whats happened BIGTIME.
    And he just keeps going over it in his head, over and over again.
    He desperatly wants to go back to how things were before.


    This interpretation is probably more personal to me.
    My daddy died 11 years ago,due to suicide i've never gotten over it. I always go over it in my head, again and again.
    I know i'll never really get over it, but i can atleast try.

    So that's my interpretation. Take it or leave it.

  9. todd
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    Aug 30th 2010 !⃝

    This song is about losing the love of your life to death and wondering what options there are to reunite. This is why science is brought up.he says tell me you love me come back to haunt me or rush back to the start.these are his options as he sees them.back to the start is a reference to reincarnation.and thus I believe this song is about reincarnation.the beginning lyrics sound very much like last viewing at a funeral.

  10. anonymous
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    Aug 12th 2010 !⃝

    Maybe the person the song is refering to may be a metaphor for something else. Maybe the song is about his life in general. Not counting out the chance that the song is about a relationship with a women. But maybe the she figure like in many other songs is something else like life period. I think he's saying that in life there are two paths one a good and one a bad. And may be saying that initially he screwed up and then realized it and then from there he changed himself first and set apart from the negative road on to pursuit a more positive life. Or maybe I'm thinkin too hard. I'm not sure.

  11. anonymous
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    Jul 18th 2010 !⃝

    The title 'The Scientist' comes from love, cause love is science in our brains... chemicals etc...

  12. anonymous
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    Jun 22nd 2010 !⃝

    The lyrics definitely come out of a terrible parting between a boy and his girlfriend.

    The line "And tell you I set you apart" clearly states that the boy's confession to his girl friend that he was the one to set her apart, or possibly "HE" was the reason that she got away from him.

    And he just wants to win her back by wishing to get "back to the start" and make things better for both of them.
    _________
    Thank You

  13. anonymous
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    Jun 2nd 2010 !⃝

    I think the song is about a couple who are torn. They love each other, they want to be there but logic tells them they shouldn't be. Maybe he comes back after time after doing something horrid and he wants her back, but both of them are trying to see the logic and fight down the love. It's like being with someone you know is bad for you, who is going to hurt you, but you just can't help yourself. they don't want to hurt you, they don't want to be bad and they come back and apologize time and again. They're taken back because love is stronger than logic.

  14. Ffffffranzi
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    May 30th 2010 !⃝

    The Scientist from the band Coldplay deals with a person who talks to his girlfriend after a quarrel and wants to apologize. The boy pays some compliments to the girl and asks for a second chance for their relationship and a new start, because he realized that he did something wrong. He wants to explain his mistakes with science but he can't.
    The boy says that they „can't carry on like this“ because they are „running in circles“ like it is said in line 9, they make the same mistakes again and again and they don't find an answer for their problem, so they need a complete new start to do it completely different. They have known that the relation would not be easy, but they did not think that it would be this hard. In line 6 and 7 he says „Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions. Oh, let's go back to the start.“ He wants to find out more about the girl and her charakter, because he wants to understand her and her problems with him. The boy hopes, if they talk to each other and she tells him more about herself, they can find the reason of their problems find out what they did wrong, to avoid it next time.
    The second part of the 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.“, is very important. It appears 2 times in the song which stresses the content. The boy and the girl know that it is not easy to have a stable relationship, but now they notice that it is more difficult than they expected it to be.
    In the lines 17-22 the boy wants to explain love with science, because he is a scientist, but now he recognizes that it does not work. In science you can detect the reasons of processes or calculate something. Love is not something which can be always explained and you can always understand. It can happen when you do not expect it. It is capricious. He tried to find out his mistakes again and again like someone „pulls puzzles apart“. But now he knows that he can not find the answer when he tries to solve the problem from the scientific side. „Do not speak as loud as my heart“. The science can not solve the problem. It depends on his feelings and he has to listen to his heart.

  15. HeartzHunni214
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    May 28th 2010 !⃝

    I believe that this song is about long distance lovers that met maybe from the internet or as pen pals or something. After years of dating or being long distance lovers, something awful happens and they split up, and so he travels back to see her but realizes that like science what he feels for her can't be explained and so he sings a song that's equally as hard to interpret as love is.




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