The Scientist
About 'The Scientist' song
A song by Coldplay. People often mistakenly call this song "Nobody Said It Was Easy" when in fact the songs correct title is "The Scientist", from Coldplay's second album, "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (2002, Parlophone). (The Royal Mail selected the artwork from this album to become one of ten stamps celebrating classic album covers in January 2010).
Rob Sheffield of the Rolling Stone review of the song stated:-
"...the fantastic piano ballad "The Scientist" is an overt sequel to "Yellow" ("Let's go back to the star") with a cataclysmic falsetto finale that could raise every hair on the back of your neck."
There is little doubt that lead singer Chris Martin has created a very dramatic song here. It is built around a simple piano rift (of Dm7 Bb F and Fsus2) which opens the track and underpins the verse and interlude sections. Martin himself remarks about this chord sequence, and how it has an endless, circular quality, where it is difficult to tell the beginning from the end. This is perhaps because the sequence has a modal ambiguity - we are unsure whether we are in the key of D minor or F major, and the major key is only established when we arrive at the chorus and we hear the dominant of F chord for the first time (C major, on the line "No one ever said it would be this hard") which then leads us back to the tonic (F chord) at the end of the last line (C chord to F chord being a perfect cadence).
The video for "The Scientist" is filmed entirely in reverse narrative (e.g. we see the end of the storyline at the beginning) It took a month of rehearsing for Chris Martin to sing the song "backwards", and garnered many MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Group Video and Breakthrough Video.
How to play 'The Scientist' on the piano or guitar
For the keyboard player, there is only one chord with a black key involved (the Bb major). The Fsus2 should be played F - G - C. You may want to consider playing the Bb chord in it's first inversion (D-F-Bb) so that the hand does not have to 'leap' to it after the Dm chord (D-F-A, or C-D-F-A if you want to make it into a Dm7).
If you are learning 'The Scientist' on the guitar both F and Bb are difficult chords for the beginner (both involving barre chords). You may wish to consider trying the song in G so that the chord sequence of the intro and verse goes Em - C - G - Gsus2. This will be slightly higher in pitch but much easier to play. Perhaps at a later stage try playing 'The Scientist' in the original key when you are feeling more confident with "barring" chords.
The Scientist Song Chords & Lyrics in F major |
