Lyrics for 42 as interpreted by rorow1

42 Lyrics
Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living in my head
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well
Oh..

Time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more

Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living in my head oh…
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well oh…

Time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more

You thought you might be a ghost
You thought you might be a ghost
You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close
You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close

You thought you might be a ghost
You thought you might be a ghost
You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close
You didn’t get to heaven but you oh oh
Oh oh…

Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living in my head
Oh..

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dragondemon396
03-13-2010

Rated +1 
I feel like the music and lyrics suggest this is about the border between sanity and insanity, sort of like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (Except less creepy of course). I feel like he almost falls apart and the instrumental part in the middle is the world crashing in on his head, but then at the last second he snaps out of it with "You thought you might be a ghost". Great song anyway.

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bigfatloser
02-17-2010

Rated 0 
haha i love that people thought of the lost connection! thats immediately what i thought of. people on lost are always seeing dead loved ones from the past and living a sort of hell either on the island or off.

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Loose Tongue
01-27-2010

Rated 0 
An ode to dandruff & dead skin.

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CLYDE512
11-03-2009

Rated 0 
I THINK THIS SONG IS ABOUT HOW SOMEBODY THINKS THAT LIFE IS TOO SHORT AND IS HAUNTED AND GRIEFSTRICKEN BY PEOPLE'S DEATHS AND HE CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM. SO THEREFORE HE IS STUCK IN HIS OWN MIND TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE....
AS FOR THE TITLE, WELL, 42 THE SUPPOSED NUMBER OF LIFE I GUESS...AND 42 JUST MAY BE TOO SHORT FOR WHO EVER IS SPEAKING...THAT'S WHAT I BELIEVE ANYWAY

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mdprhs
09-29-2009

Rated 0 
42 might be his age (easy to google) or the whole hitchiker's thing is applicable too....anyway ima do this later peace.

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elles94
07-30-2009

Rated 0 
42 in the bible represents suffering and test. I think suffering and test has a lot to do with the ideas Coldplay portrays in this song toward the afterlife.

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RoOtBeErChIc
07-27-2009

Rated 0 
its "time is so short and unsure"

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iwantahug
07-11-2009

Rated 0 
I think he is just remembering his dead loved ones.
'living in my head'
To him, that person isn't "dead" dead, they're alive in them.
The break to me means the same idea "You thought you were a ghost" The person is living in them.
It's almost as if being in the outside world, with the increase of instruments in section two.
It's almost as if he wakes up with them in his mind;
Then at section three, he goes to bed with the 'dead' in his head.


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Behrus
07-11-2009

Rated 0 
42 is the number from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from which all meaning ("the meaning of life, the universe, and everything") could be derived.
From Adams' radio script (which apparently preceded the book:):

("Cave man" lays out following sentence in Scrabble stones: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?")
Arthur: Six by nine? Forty-two? You know, I've always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe.
(Faint and distant voice:) Base thirteen!

For the literal-minded and those unfamiliar with terms like "base thirteen," 42 in a system where "10" equals decimal "13" is the same as four 13s plus 2, or decimal 54. So "six by nine" or decimal 54 is, in base 13, 42. For the mystically inclined, 42 in base 13 is the same as 110110 in binary (base 2). This could mean almost anything, and many Adams fans have spent untold hours discovering all of the places where the number "42" pops up. For example, there are many mentions of the number in the Book of Revelations and (here we quote from the Web site mentioned below): The angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees. Two physical constants in the universe are the speed of light and thediameter of a proton. It takes light 10 to the minus 42nd power seconds to cross the diameter of a proton. A barrel holds 42 gallons.
This is 42
And i don't like the part that the song get fast!

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deathcode2595
06-17-2009

Rated 0 
When I first heard the song, the unnerving but somehow alluring sound of it is what drew me in. I could tell simply by that it had something to do with dead. I agree that "Those who are dead, are not dead, they're just living in my head", refers to people he has lost, and that they're alive in his memories. I think he is so grief-stricken it made him become apathetic towards life itself, and shut himself up within his memories, because that's all that makes him feel alive anymore. "And since I fell for that spell, I've been living there as well." As for "Time is so short and I'm sure there must be something more", I think he is very aware of the problem he has, and possibly tries to fix it by finding the meaning of life. Ergo, the title of the song, "42", which is supposed to be the answer to life, the universe and everything. "You thought you might be a ghost, you didn't get to heaven but you made it close". That could either refer to himself; he has completely given up and he considers himself dead and is simply walking the Earth as a ghost. Or, he convinced himself the ones he lost are still there with him, they must be because they're still "living in his head", so he tells himself they're just ghosts haunting him. Either way...I basically see this as a song of a mentally disturbed person's thoughts on death and his journey trying to confirm them. Heehee...am I making any sense?

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clam0
04-20-2009

Rated 0 
it sounds to me like someone in a mid-life crisis who converts to religion

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jess42
03-22-2009

Rated 0 
i absolutely love this song.
42 is and always will be my favortie number.
So that makes me so much more attracted to the song.
i love the way the song ends.
the two stanzas before the end make the song sound hopeful and not so depressed but the end reminds you that the dead are only memories in your mind.

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Loose Tongue
03-10-2009

Rated -1 
Apple is 4 years old. The other offspring is 2 years old (I think his/her name is Moses) but don't quote me on that. CM's daughters/sons with GP.

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rabidsquirrel
02-27-2009

Rated 0 
I don't understand where a lot of these connections are coming from, a lot of them either seem like coincidence or like you're stretching it to fit your life (especially the ones about love). It's kind of funny how our minds are always trying to connect things somehow, kind of like the "The Walrus is dead" Beatles conspiracy xD

It definitely seems likely the Hitchhiker's connection isn't a coincidence though. When I heard this song I thought it was pretty obvious that this song is a spooky and tense musing about life and death and the meaning of life and death.

In the middle the instrumental bit and the ghost bit sounds like a panic (which also ties in to Hitchhkier's) - kind of like when you think about the meaning of life too hard and the stress makes you freak out - and then it dies away again but still leaves us with that haunting melody reminding us that no matter what we do that question will be hanging around.

This song isn't really meant to be a good single by itself, it's a kind of a tension builder for the beginning/middle of the album before Lovers in Japan. I find it very cool because it creates a very tense atmosphere - and making the instrumental really sudden, late, and long really adds to that feel.

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Loose Tongue
02-22-2009

Rated -1 
Chris Martin is feeling guilty of all those people who unintentionally killed themselves from tears & emotional sickness listening to Fix You. Their immortal thetan spirits are now residing & resounding in his head, haunting Him. The middle eight guitar section I authorised Coldplay to copy of my song here: http://www.last.fm/music/Jose+Bay/_/Hope+It%27s+Not+Too+Late

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colLYN1884
02-19-2009

Rated 0 
I have a couple of theroy's...
The first would be about religion. What I mean by this is, at the last part, "You thought you might be a ghost"...I think it is talking something about suicid and in my religion if you kill yourself you go to hell...and it also says, "You didn't get to heavan but you made it close" I remember when I first heard this song thats what it reminded me of...suicid.

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Frisby
02-10-2009

Rated +1 
"Maybe he should talk to someone. Seeing dead people probably isn't very healthy." xDD Roflol.

Anyhow...

What this song strikes me as being about is this guy who has people die in his life lately. "And since I fell for that spell" refers to when they died and he became depressed. And finally "I am living there as well" means that they're unable to face the reality of the deaths and has withdraw to his fantasy where he can remember them and pretend they haven't died.

"Time is so short" is saying there is so little time in life, and "I'm sure there must be something more" questions whether life is all that there is.

"You thought you might be a ghost"
I believe now the speaker is referring to a lover who had speculated about what comes after death, and they thought they would become a ghost.
"You didn't get to heaven but you made it close" could mean that the speaker doesn't believe that they went to heaven, but his lover seems to be remaining behind with him. I think he's saying that being in his head is close to being in heaven.

And then finally the repetition of the last two lines makes me think that the person is going to continue going along in their messed up daydream, and their continuing to deny the fact that the dead are gone. I think so because its repeating the first lines, so its like an infinite loop.

-happy dance- This was a fun song to interpret. 8D



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delrio
01-03-2009

Rated 0 
Well, it wasn't long ago that I was reading up on Viva La Vida, and I recall Chris saying that every song in the album was related to a rebellion or revolution of some sort (for example, Viva La Vida was about the second French Revolution where that one king was overthrown). Thus, I believe that 42 may have some sort of millitaristic (don't know if that's a word) meaning to it.

However, 42 more likely represents the number of lives lost in some war, or even the length of the war the song is about.

Onto the meaning. If the paragraph above is correct, then the song should probably be about a soldier or rebel that fought the enemy and walked away from battle having seen many of his allies perish. The battle scared him both physically and emotionally, with post-war mental issues of some sort. However, as it turns out, the war was won, and everybody celebrates, with our fellow wounded soldier alive to see it all on front of him. Yet, he still can't help but feel a sense of loss after witnessing such violence.

That's my diagnosis of the song. From that point, it's up to you to decide what the deeper meaning of the song is.

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vivaldi_is_cool
12-24-2008

Rated -2 
i really hate this song. everyone i repeat EVERYONE who disagrees with me post a reply

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2 Replies
higgenthorpe22
12-12-2008

Rated 0 
This song reminds me of old Coldplay circa Parachutes.

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vivaldi_is_cool
12-08-2008

Rated -3 
this is the worst song on the album.

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strawberryfields8
11-26-2008

Rated 0 
I think the slower part means you were so wrapped in the past and overcome with grief that you wasted your life. Also, the lines "Time is so short and I’m sure
there must be something more" might mean that you realized what you have done, but you're too late and now you're just hoping that there's something else after this. The next part is more confusing. Maybe it's like after you've died, you were stuck in Purgatory? You didn't do anything wrong, but you didn't earn you're way to Heaven? So, you think you're a ghost, and you were close to making it to Heaven. I'm not sure about that second part =]

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aparksmusic
11-21-2008

Rated 0 
If you add up the value of the letters in the word "Japan" (with a = 1, b = 2, c = 3 ... x = 24, y = 25 x = 26) you get 42.

And in Japanese, "4 (shi) and 2 (ni) are together pronounced like 'going to death'" according to Wikipedia.

Could be completely unrelated, but seems like a fascinating coincidence either way, especially given that Japan is already mentioned on the album...

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abb9999999
11-17-2008

Rated +1 
Does anyone else sense a vague connection with Romeo and Juliet? After all, the potion Juliet takes that makes her appear to be dead lasts 42 hours. This might be stretching it, but one who is a deeper thinker than I might be able to support this theory.

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Seahighster
11-15-2008

Rated 0 
Wow, Harry Potter much? Am I the only one who made this correlation? Maybe I'm just a super-nerd or something, but seriously, think about it. It's so clear.

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