She stands beneath a row of sycamores outside a shuttered paint shop called Better Days. The sign’s letters have been repainted so many times that the final E leans like someone trying to remember the last syllable of a name. Marie’s coat is the color of a Coldplay album cover you loved when you were nineteen—muted, luminous, the kind of blue that seems to hold a glow from another world. In her hand she holds a jar of dried brushes and a photograph folded into quarters. When she notices you, her smile is both surprised and prepared, as though she’d been rehearsing this moment in a thousand quiet afternoons.
The band and art studio Tappin Gofton daubed the title "VIVA LA VIDA" in bold, white, graffiti-style paint across the classical canvas. The Symbolism: coldplay when you see marie famous old paint better
It comes from the very next section of the song, which is a distinct musical shift. Coldplay borrows a lyric from an old traditional cowboy folk song called "Goodbye, Old Paint." Chris Martin sings: She stands beneath a row of sycamores outside