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A1+

Fix You

Coldplay

Language
English
Released
2005
Genre
alternative rock
Level
A1+
Difficulty score
365
Duration
4:56

How to study this song

The card for “Fix You” is built from 38 study entries at A1+: 10 English words, 4 adjectives and 24 verb forms. Start with the glossary: tears and face come up again and again, so they are the ones to know first. This one leans on its verbs: 24 distinct forms against 4 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.

The words of this song, in several languages

Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.

Vocabulary

ENESITFRPTNLDE
tearslágrimaslacrimelarmeslágrimastranenTränen
facecaravisovisagerostogezichtGesicht

This card holds 8 more words. You meet them when you play the song.

Adjectives

ENESITFR

What this song teaches you

Level · A1+

Vocabulary words
10
Adjectives
4
Word combos
7
Expressions
10
Verb forms
24
Quiz questions
35

More English songs at this level

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  • Girls Just Want to Have Fun — Cyndi Lauper (1983)A1+
  • She Will Be Loved — Maroon 5 (2004)A1+

Background

About the song

«Fix You» is a slow-building ballad by the British band Coldplay and one of the best-loved songs of the 2000s. It appeared on «X&Y», the group’s third studio album, which Parlophone released in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2005 and Capitol released in the United States a day later. On 5 September 2005 the song was issued as the album’s second single, after «Speed of Sound». It is credited to all four members of the band, Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion, and it was produced by Ken Nelson, Danton Supple and Coldplay themselves.

The story behind it is very personal. In late 2002 Chris Martin met the American actress Gwyneth Paltrow, only a few weeks after her father, the television director and producer Bruce Paltrow, had died. The couple married in December 2003. Martin later explained that Bruce Paltrow had bought a big keyboard shortly before his death and that nobody in the house had ever plugged it in. When Martin finally switched it on, one of its sounds gave him the starting point for a new piece of music, and the ideas seemed to come out of that single sound. Paltrow herself said in 2015, in a radio interview with Howard Stern, that the song was about Martin trying to help her after her father’s death, and that she found it a lovely gesture.

«X&Y» was a hard album to make. The sessions ran from early 2004 to early 2005 at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool and Sarm West Studios in London. The band was unhappy with much of the early work, wrote around sixty songs and threw most of them away, and the release was delayed more than once. Danton Supple was brought in to work alongside Ken Nelson, who had produced the first two albums. «Fix You» was one of the songs that survived. In 2005 Martin described it as probably the most important song the band had ever written, and in a 2011 interview with the magazine Mojo he called it the Coldplay song he was proudest of, adding that it had almost on its own carried the group through two very difficult years.

Musically, the song is in E-flat major and moves slowly, at about 69 beats per minute. It opens very quietly, with an organ-like keyboard and Martin singing in a high falsetto. Keyboard and voice carry the first half; then Jonny Buckland’s electric guitar comes in, the drums arrive and the arrangement grows into a loud, bright climax, before it falls back into a gentle ending in which the members sing together like a small choir. Martin had first wanted the sound of a real church organ. He named «Grace Under Pressure», a 2003 song by the Manchester band Elbow, as an influence; Guy Berryman mentioned Jimmy Cliff’s 1969 classic «Many Rivers to Cross»; and Martin also spoke about the way the band Muse had used a church organ on one of its records.

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PT
NL
DE
tiredcansadostancofatiguécansadomoemüde

This card holds 3 more adjectives. You meet them when you play the song.

Verb forms

ENESITFRPTNLDE
you tryintentasprovitu essaiestentasje probeertdu versuchst
you don't succeedno lo consiguesnon ci riescitu n’y arrives pasnão consegueshet lukt je nietdu schaffst es nicht
you getconsiguesottienitu obtiensconseguesje krijgtdu bekommst
you wantquieresvuoitu veuxqueresje wiltdu willst
you neednecesitasti servetu as besoinprecisasje nodig hebtdu brauchst
you feelte sientesti sentitu te senssentes-teje voelt jedu fühlst dich
you can't sleepno puedes dormirnon riesci a dormiretu ne peux pas dormirnão consegues dormirje kunt niet slapendu kannst nicht schlafen
come streamingcaen a chorrosscendono a fiotticoulent à flotsescorremkomen stromenströmen herab
you losepierdesperditu perdsperdesje verliestdu verlierst

This card holds 15 more verb forms. You meet them when you play the song.

The words are addressed to a person who is going through a terrible time. The verses describe situations that almost everyone has known: working as hard as possible and still failing, getting what you wanted but not what you really needed, being exhausted and unable to rest, and losing a person or a thing that nothing can replace. The chorus answers with an image of light leading the other person back, and with a promise of help and healing. Near the end the narrator also admits his own faults and promises to do better. Because the song never names one particular loss, listeners have connected it with grief, illness, separation and public tragedies, and it is often played at moments of shared mourning.

The music video was directed by Sophie Muller, who had already filmed Coldplay’s «In My Place» in 2002. It follows Chris Martin through London at night, along tunnels near King’s Cross and St Pancras stations and across Waterloo Bridge, until he runs onto a stage and joins the band in front of a huge crowd. Those concert scenes were shot at the end of the group’s two shows on 4 and 5 July 2005 at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton, the first stadium concerts of their career. The video was first shown on 1 August 2005. Because of its London streets, many people later shared it as a tribute to the victims of the bombings of 7 July 2005 in the city, although the concert footage had been filmed before the attacks.

For learners of English, «Fix You» is a very good song to study. Many lines start with the conjunction «when», which introduces a time clause followed by the present simple. The lyric contrasts the verbs «want» and «need», and it uses the negative forms «don’t» and «can’t» as well as the full written form «cannot». It shows «will» for a promise about the future and a first conditional built with «if» and «never». There are also useful phrasal verbs and expressions, such as «let go», «go to waste» and «learn from», and the adjective «stuck» for a situation in which you cannot move forward. The vocabulary is simple and concrete, with words like tears, face, bones, lights and home, and Martin sings slowly and clearly, so every word is easy to follow.

Did you know?

The song reached television very quickly. It was first heard in the season two finale of the American drama «The O.C.» in 2005, and it later appeared in «Without a Trace», «Cold Case», «Brothers & Sisters», «The Newsroom» and the final episode of the Spanish series «Money Heist» in December 2021. In the British comedy «Gavin & Stacey» its words were used in a renewal of wedding vows. It was also heard in the trailer of the film «World Trade Center» (2006) and in Danny Boyle’s «Yesterday» (2019).

On stage it has become a song for difficult moments. According to Wikipedia, Coldplay’s performance at Live 8 in July 2005 turned it into an anthem of that event. The band also played it at Sound Relief in Sydney in March 2009, at the memorial for Steve Jobs held for Apple employees on 19 October 2011, and at the One Love Manchester benefit concert on 4 June 2017, after the attack at the Manchester Arena. In October 2021 Ed Sheeran joined Chris Martin for a surprise performance of it.

Many artists have recorded their own versions: the Young@Heart Chorus, a choir of older singers from Massachusetts, in 2006; the American band Yellowcard in 2012; Sam Smith in 2020; BTS in their «MTV Unplugged» session in February 2021; and Camila Cabello at the Concert for Ukraine in March 2022. The ice hockey team Montreal Canadiens has also used it as its official entrance music.

Critics placed it high in many lists. The British magazine Q ranked it second among the best tracks of 2005, Rolling Stone included it in its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time at number 392, and Dutch listeners voted it number two in the Top 2000 of the radio station NPO Radio 2 in 2024. The song was also nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for its music and words.

Charts & streaming

In the United Kingdom «Fix You» peaked at number four on the Official Singles Chart in September 2005, and by 2011 it had spent 122 weeks on the chart. In October 2024 the Official Charts Company listed it as Coldplay’s fourth biggest song in the country, with 2.6 million chart units. Wikipedia lists a five-times Platinum certification in the UK, three-times Platinum in the United States and six-times Platinum in Australia. It reached number four in Canada, number six in Spain, number eight in Ireland and number thirteen in Italy; in the US it peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart.

Its parent album was a huge success. «X&Y» went straight to number one in the UK, selling 464,471 copies in its first week, and in the US, where it was the band’s first chart-topping album with 737,294 copies. It reached number one in 32 countries and, with 8.3 million units, was the best-selling album in the world in 2005.