![\"19481799848_c130d9997b_o\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/162\/2018\/01\/19481799848_c130d9997b_o-300x154.jpg\")
\u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d was one of the biggest hits of 2017. It reached number three on Billboard\u2019s top 100. It was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Pop Duo\/Group Performance category. The single has sold millions all over the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d<\/a> is a collaboration between Coldplay and the more recent EDM (Electronic Dance Music) duo The Chainsmokers. It was written collaboratively at a recording session. Five members of both bands are credited as songwriters. The opening lyric of the song goes as follows:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been reading books of old You\u2019ll notice, perhaps, that we shift rather abruptly from the classical heroes Achilles and Hercules, to the figures of Spiderman and Batman. It is surely foolish to quibble with pop songs, but I\u2019m not sure if Spidey and the Dark Knight can really be said to have sprung from \u201cbooks of old.\u201d Batman first appeared in print in 1939, Spiderman in 1962.<\/p>\n Alex Tall and Andrew Taggart of The Chainsmokers were both born in the 1980s. In our current era of temporal acceleration, it may be the case that the \u201960s seem like olden times to Alex and Andrew and that the \u201930s may as well be ancient history.<\/p>\n The members of Coldplay, however, were all born in the 1970s. Mightn\u2019t this extra decade of life on earth given them a richer sense of history\u2019s long sweep?<\/p>\n Spiderman and Superman aside, we should probably be grateful that the members of two popular musical outfits would have Achilles and Hercules on the mind at all, let alone include them in lyrics to a pop song. Is it going absolutely too far, then, to be bothered by the fact that Achilles is associated with \u201cgold\u201d and Hercules with \u201cgifts\u201d? Couldn\u2019t we have had \u201cglory\u201d and \u201clabors,\u201d respectively, instead?<\/p>\n To be fair, Achilles, as a sort of Greek king, or tribal leader at least, was surely in possession of a fair amount of gold. His shield, described lovingly, painstakingly, even tediously by Homer through more than a hundred lines in Book XVIII of the Iliad<\/em>, is wrought partially in gold. Agamemnon dangles various piles of riches before Achilles in attempting to bribe him back into the fight against Troy.<\/p>\n So, I suppose it is not impossible to associate Achilles with gold. Not being a complete and total pedant, I also realize that the writers of \u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d had bigger worries on their minds than textual fidelity to the Iliad<\/em>. There was, for instance, a rhyme scheme to consider. \u201cOld\u201d has to rhyme with something. \u201cGold\u201d does the trick.<\/p>\n But why not go for something in an off-rhyme? Why not, \u201cI\u2019ve been reading books of old \/ the legends and the myths \/ Achilles and his wrath \/Hercules and his gifts\u201d? \u201cAchilles and his wrath\u201d has a nice sound to it, I think. It links us up directly with those spine-chilling lines from the opening of The Iliad<\/em> where Homer invokes the Muse and begs her to help him tell of the menis\u2014<\/em>the anger or wrath\u2014<\/em>of Achilles.<\/p>\n Come to think of it, the lead vocalist of Coldplay, Chris Martin, might, with his British pronunciation, have enunciated \u201cwrath\u201d into something more like \u201cwroth,\u201d which is a beautifully archaic form of \u201cwrath\u201d and which would have made an even more pleasing off-rhyme with \u201cold.\u201d And why couldn\u2019t we have expected as much from Mr. Martin, both in terms of euphony and classical scholarship? It is in fact the case that Martin \u201cread\u201d (as the Brits say) Ancient World Studies at University College London where he graduated with first-class honors in Greek and Latin.<\/p>\n This is a man who most certainly came across the ancient Greek word menis<\/em> once or twice before completing his studies. He would probably have learned, in his studies of the classics, that the wrath of Achilles has great significance. Achilles, born of the immortal Thetis and the mortal Peleus, is a man almost literally bifurcated (fully human, fully divine, anyone?). A mortal on one hand, he is also teased, frustrated and tantalized by the essentially superhuman powers that make him the greatest of fighters.<\/p>\n Achilles seeks to go beyond himself, and it is that very seeking which causes so much chaos amongst the Achaeans and the Trojans. Eventually, it leads to his own doom. Later, in the Odyssey<\/em>, visited by Odysseus in the underworld, Achilles will say (in a speech not lost on John Milton) that he\u2019d rather have been a simple farmer on earth than an immortal hero ruling in Hades for eternity. He learns the hard way the beauty of mortality\u2019s bounded quality.<\/p>\n Achilles is, thus, a kind of living embodiment of our difficulties accepting the limitations of finite human life, and our desire to outstrip such limitations. Achilles has that problem in his very bones, as it were. A god stirs in him, but only enough to drive him mad.<\/p>\n Which is, actually, the theme of the song that Chris Martin of Coldplay helped to write. The later lyrics of \u201cSomething Just Like This,\u201d which is structured as an internal dialogue between the singer and an unnamed she are the following:<\/p>\n But she said, where\u2019d you wanna go?<\/em><\/p>\n How much you wanna risk?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not looking for somebody<\/em><\/p>\n With some superhuman gifts<\/em><\/p>\n She\u2019s looking for a normal human being. Someone she can \u201ckiss.\u201d Someone tangible. Someone mortal, human, incarnate, fallible, fleshy.<\/p>\n The singer of the song is having rather more trouble accepting the idea that he\u2019s not to be counted among the heroes. It ought to be noted that the singers of \u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d are, themselves, not exactly normal, everyday people. They are pop stars. They\u2019ve written a song that transcends them, that will exist in human memory, like Achilles\u2019s glory (sort of). The song will stick around for awhile even if, God forbid, the pop stars should all perish in a plane crash tomorrow.<\/p>\n And yet the song makes the case for humility. Something \u201cjust like this\u201d is something fundamentally sublunary, alluvial, downright telluric. Those words don\u2019t come up in the lyrics written by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers. The writers opt instead less for words and more for a crunchy electro-beat that kicks in with the chorus and its string of doo-doo-doos. But it is, after all, a pretty good beat, a beat that might even have pleased Achilles, sitting round the fire with his friend Patroclus, in the mythical days of old.<\/p>\n Morgan Meis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>is a contributor to Page Turner at<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/a>. He has a PhD in Philosophy and has written for<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Smart Set, n+1<\/i><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Believer, Harper\u2019s Magazine<\/i><\/span>, and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Virginia Quarterly Review<\/i><\/span>. He won the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Whiting Award<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>in 2013. Morgan is also an editor at<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>3 Quarks Daily<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and a winner of a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant<\/span><\/a>. He is the author of<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Dead People<\/i><\/span><\/a>, with Stefany Anne Golberg. He can be reached at<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>morganmeis@gmail.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d was one of the biggest hits of 2017. It reached number three on Billboard\u2019s top 100. It was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Pop Duo\/Group Performance category. The single has sold millions all over the world. \u201cSomething Just Like This\u201d is a collaboration between Coldplay and the more recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1861,"featured_media":12199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1457],"tags":[4519,4520,3818,3580,1179,4417],"class_list":["post-12198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-reflection","tag-achilles","tag-iliad","tag-immortality","tag-morgan-meis","tag-mortality","tag-popular-music"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe legends and the myths
\nAchilles and his gold
\nHercules and his gifts
\nSpiderman\u2019s control
\nAnd Batman with his fists<\/em><\/p>\n![\"GL](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/162\/2015\/09\/GL-banner.jpg\")
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