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  1. Tracks
  2. Coldplay
  3. X & Y
  4. What If
What If by Coldplay

SINGLE

Coldplay

What If

Release date: 31st May 2005

From X & Y
Track 2
4:59
AlternativeMusicPopBritpop
Spotify Apple Music More on Coldplay

About This Track

What If sits among the singles from an album shaped by the band's own creative doubt. The track builds from a series of hypotheticals, each one a small catastrophe: the absence of light, of time, of reason. Coldplay use these premises to arrive at a more personal fear, the possibility of rejection, of not belonging in someone else's life. The song's architecture is repetition and escalation, each verse circling back to the same dread before the chorus breaks through with a counter-argument: "Let's take a breath, jump over the side." That exhortation, to act despite uncertainty, becomes the track's emotional core. The lyrics acknowledge that every choice carries risk, that you cannot know the outcome of a leap until you take it. There is no safety in hesitation. The song moves from abstract philosophical questions to the concrete vulnerability of wanting to be wanted, and it does so without sentimentality, the melody and arrangement matching the lyrical directness with a kind of measured intensity.

"What If" is a single by Coldplay, from the album X & Y, released 31st May 2005. The track is 4:59 long. It's filed under Alternative. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 11 articles about Coldplay.

About the Artist

Coldplay

Coldplay

Lyrics

What If

What if there was no light
Nothing wrong, nothing right
What if there was no time
And no reason, or rhyme
What if you should decide
That you don't want me there by your side
That you don't want me there in your life

What if I got it wrong
And no poem, or song
Could put right what I got wrong
Or make you feel I belong
And what if you should decide
That you don't want me there by your side
That you don't want me there in your life

That's right
Let's take a breath, jump over the side
That's right
How can you know it if you don't even try?

That's right

Every step that you take
Could be your biggest mistake
It could bend or it could break
That's the risk that you take
What if you should decide
That you don't want me there in your life
That you don't want me there by your side

That's right
Let's take a breath, jump over the side
That's right
How can you know it when you don't even try?

That's right

That's right
Let's take a breath, jump over the side
That's right
You know that darkness always turns into light

That's right

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

From X & Y

4:592005Single
Listen
Album
X & Y
X & Y
Coldplay
1st June 2005
Track number
2
Release year
2005
  1. 1Square One
    4:48
  2. 2What If
    4:59
  3. 3White Shadows
    5:28
  4. 4Fix You
    4:56

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    Credits

    Production & Engineering

    Writer
    Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion
    Producer
    Chris Martin, Danton Supple, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Ken Nelson, Will Champion
    Bass
    Guy Berryman
    Drums
    Will Champion
    Lead Guitar
    Jonny Buckland
    Lead Vocals
    Chris Martin
    Percussion
    Will Champion
    Piano
    Chris Martin
    READ MORE ABOUT COLDPLAYREAD MORE ABOUT COLDPLAYREAD MORE ABOUT COLDPLAYREAD MORE ABOUT COLDPLAY
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