Vivat Vita in Camera (Long Live Life on Camera)

The post Brit/Pop, alternative rock, pop group Coldplay has been active (according to Wikipedia, et. al.) since 1997. They originally called themselves Big Fat Noises, then Starfish before settling on the name Coldplay. For the sake of recent news and my blog, I’m glad they changed from their original moniker since “The Big Fat Noises” Kiss Cam would not be nearly as catchy.

The infamous Kiss Cam incident of July 15, 2025, quickly became the bane of the couple depicted before the world in this not unfamiliar technology. I’m certain this couple regretted attending such a well-known band with the following of Coldplay; I’m equally certain they attended this concert for the same reasons of that following.

There exists a strong attraction to the forbidden. One of the ancient texts I regularly study tells of a man and woman who had everything any of us could ever imagine (but not quite) yet they chose to do the very thing they were prohibited from doing. It was sadly the only thing they were told not to do. The “forbidden fruit” for this ancient couple was literally a fruit, unlike the couple on the Kiss Cam who were discovered during a secret tryst.

Even in a society and culture such as ours in the United States, which has come close to mandating never to judge anything as wrong, there are many activities even those doing them understand the impropriety. Interestingly, there exists something akin to a genetic attraction to the prohibited—even if that prohibition only exists within ourselves. The same text recounting the eating of the forbidden fruit by the progenitors of humanity testify to their attraction to what they knew to be improper, even though it seemed to be good in their sight.

This brings us back to Coldplay. Their song Viva la Vida (long live life, 2006) provides an interesting backdrop and context for the pain the Kiss Cam culture brought into the lives of this couple during an affair they desired to “long live.” The song Viva la Vida, co-written by Coldplay’s vocalist Chris Martin, tells of one who looks back on the glory of past days when “I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word.” Yet it is the perspective given in the song applying in the context of the Kiss Cam: “Now in the morning, I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own.”

The ancient text referenced earlier, the Holy Bible, records story after story in its Old Testament (so named for its age not its obsolescence) of the attraction  and passion for sin. Again, our culture does not wish to label choices as sin; instead, they often seek to “cancel” that regarded as inappropriate. Whereas the Bible from in its beginning provides a means to gain forgiveness, many in our society seek to respond with destruction of those who choose what they deem as wrong.

Viva la Vida’s singer longingly recalls “feeling the fear in [his] enemy’s eyes” as he “used to roll the dice” and all played out in his memory “as the crowd would sing.” Just as the singer in this ballad realized “one minute, I held the key, next the walls were closed on me as I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.” Martin’s voice causes the listener to lose any perspective of time, yet in the context of this essay, when did this couple learn their “castles [stood on] pillars of salt and pillars of sand?”

Comprehension dawns on the singer amid memory’s reverie. Those days were “a wicked and wild wind [blowing] down the doors to let me in [and] shattered windows and the “people couldn’t believe what I’d become.” As quickly as the passion of those moments dissipated, the scene changes from the thirst found in moments to a swelling revolt rising from the smoldering ashes of a now public tryst. “Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate, just a puppet on a lonely string.” The singer’s realized finale faces this new reality with resounding regret. “Aw, who would ever wanna be king?”

Humanity finds itself seeking solace and consolation when the passion of the moment is gone leaving only the tinnitus aftereffect belonging to a memory. The accusations begin—not from the crowds who have rendered their judgment’s desire for a head on a platter, but from the icy looks that once held the heat of a lover. Long forgotten memories on stories heard in a church grasp the coldness of what has been rejected. “For some reason I can’t explain I know Saint Peter won’t call my name.”

Jesus, in the Bible I mentioned, says “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Go to him.