The Scientist – Jenny & Tyler – For Freedom
– Read about the rest of the project here
– Download the album (Mastered for iTunes) here: http://bit.ly/4freed
When we listen to The Scientist by Coldplay, we are often transported to a state of wonder. Including this on the album was an easy choice. The Scientist is the second track on the EP, following Tonight, Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins. We felt it both thematically and musically appropriate to do so. For us, Tonight, Tonight is about starting a relationship. The Scientist is about redeeming a relationship. For the full album track list and more information about the project, visit this post: http://jennyandtyler.com/ffblog/
Here’s the original:
It almost goes without saying, but in The Scientist, there’s something almost tangibly sorrowful about the feel of the music and lyrics. Yet there’s also something subtly redemptive. We find a beautiful humility in the opening lines “Come up to meet you. Tell you I’m sorry.” Similarly, we find a both contrition and capitulation in the line “O, take me back to the start,” as if the writer is declaring his need for forgiveness. Jenny and I need what’s in this line. Our marriage needs it. Our relationship both with God and our fellow man needs it. We know how fragmented our world is; you can see it every day; just turn on the news. Some of us also know how fragmented own hearts, minds, and souls are; fragmentation (some call it downright wickedness) certainly results from our strivings (going our own way without regard for the love of God), wickedness we call righteousness, light we’ve put for darkness and darkness for light, however the great or small the degree. Still, there is hope. And we see that hope (of overcoming the fragmented) in those lyrics. Maybe that’s why they resonate so loudly with us.
On a different note, The Scientist is actually the first song that I sang to Jane, just minutes after she was born. I kid you not; upon singing this song, she almost immediately stopped crying and looked curiously in my direction. I’d sung this song and others to her almost daily while she was in Jenny’s womb. Maybe she recognized my voice. Maybe she recognized the song. Maybe neither. Either way, she quieted down for a minute while the doctors measured and weighed her in the coldness of the delivery room.