Creepy Coldplay

OM hits the whippets, then goes Skinny Puppy on Chris Martin:

Coldplay makes Macaulay Culkin look like Steven Seagal, cracking his nuts over a poor beggar’s skull to punish him for being hungry. As for our choice of song, “Shiver” really goes up to eleven in terms of Voxian gamma creepiness. Example:

Did you want me to change?
Well I changed for good
And I want you to know.
That you’ll always get your way
I wanted to say,

Don’t you Shiver?

The use of the word shiver is curious: does this mean the singer is expecting the girl to get little-girl-giggle-shivers from the overwhelming emotion of the lyrics? Or is this, in fact, a confession that the singer realizes how repulsive this sort of sniveling is to the ladies?

In fairness to Coldplay, I think it's important to remember that Chris Martin is now married to Gwyneth Paltrow, which probably has more than a little to do with inspiring lyrics about shivering and someone always having to get her way. And what I think OM is forgetting here is that pop music is aspirational.

But for whom? The mere fact that Coldplay happens to be male doesn't mean that its audience is also male; with the exception of the new "Paradise" single, which I rather like and has a very funny video featuring elephant costumes, I could not tell you the name of a single Coldplay song. So, I conclude that their audience is mostly female, and therefore, although the voice is male, the lyric represents a female psychological posture.

Furthermore, music is emotional, not logical. It doesn't always matter who is nominally being addressed; the "you" from the verse is not necessarily the same "you" in the bridge or chorus. So, it is the female audience who will let the Other get his way, but it is also the female audience who shivers in emotional ecstasy of the release she finds in giving herself this way.

At least, that's what I thought before I read the rest of the lyrics. And on second thought, I was wrong, OM is correct, and this is straight-up gamma creepiness. "Shiver" is simply Coldplay's attempt to write their own "Every Breath You Take", only where that song had a stronger, quasi-serial killer vibe to it, "Shiver" completely fails in its pure Gamma supplication.

So I look in your direction,
But you pay me no attention,
And you know how much I need you,
But you never even see me.

What the "shiver" is supposed to be is the chilling aspect of the stalking, but this guy is simply too much of a milksop to invoke any genuine sense of alarm. Whereas Sting conveyed disturbed passion and danger, Chris Martin conveys little more than creepy bathos.