The song is a stream-of-consciousness composition where the singer lovingly and hauntingly intones a list of things he did for his unrequited love interest.

Chris Martin is terrible at Neil Young impersonations. Martin told Howard Stern in 2011 that “Yellow” came about, basically in whole cloth out of the air, at a recording session in Wales. Martin says that there were some technical problems, and during the break, he tried to defuse the frustration at the faulty equipment by doing a lousy impersonation of Neil Young. It didn’t go over very well, but the band went outside while work continued on the equipment. It was a cloudless night, and the band’s producer, Ken Nelson, tried to give the band a pep talk by telling them to “look to the stars.” That jolted something inside Martin, but he didn’t know what it was.

Yellow

He was trying to think of something in the way that folks do when something’s “right on the tip of their tongue.” Suddenly, he spied the Yellow Pages gathering dust on a shelf, and that was the one word he was seeking to cement the lyrics of the song together. Without that one word, the lyrics are a jumble. Martin even says that they won’t be discussed or analyzed in 100 years. It’s even kind of fanciful because stars, even if they’re yellow dwarfs, don’t generally look yellow at night when you look to the night sky as Nelson encouraged them to do. Sure, the sun is yellow, but it’s not shining at night.

The “You”

Martin has been asked in the past, “Who’s the person you’re singing to in ‘Yellow’?” He’s said that it’s not one specific person but all girls. Martin’s message is that the romance among everyone is special, which takes on a different meaning 23 years after the group recorded the song for its first album. Two decades ago, the LGBTQ2IA+ community wasn’t as accepted as it is in 2023. Of course, society still has a long way to go before LGBTQ2IA+ folks can feel like equal members of society, but the message of, “It’s for all girls,” from 2023 takes on the meaning of, “It’s for all people,” in today’s somewhat more enlightened society.

Other Media

The song’s cross between hopefulness and melancholy makes it popular among contestants during multiple seasons of singing reality programs like “The Voice,” “American Idol,” and “The Masked Singer.” It has also appeared in dramas and comedies, such as “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Westworld,” and “Cold Case.”

Lyrics

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you

And everything you do

Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do

And it was called Yellow

So then I took my turn
Oh, what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
And you know, you know I love you so

You know I love you so

I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh, what a thing to do
‘Cause you were all yellow

I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh, what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

And your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
And you know, for you, I’d bleed myself dry
For you, I’d bleed myself dry

It’s true
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things that you do

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Christopher Anthony John Martin / Guy Rupert Berryman / William Champion / Jonathan Mark Buckland

Yellow lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Mgb Ltd.

Listeners of music from the 2000’s, might also appreciate the song Sex on Fire by King of Leon