“The Scientist” by Coldplay

Coldplay built "The Scientist" around a piano, and it sits on A Rush of Blood to the Head, their 2002 second album, as a hushed, heartsick ballad: a man laying out how much he wants to love and how badly he needs to apologize.

Chris Martin plays the piano and sings, slipping up into falsetto, while Jonny Buckland's guitars, Guy Berryman's bass and Will Champion's drums creep in so gently you barely notice the song growing. The whole band shares the writing credit, and they produced it with Ken Nelson, who also recorded it, with Mark Phythian adding production and helping mix.

Britain got it as the album's second single, and it reached number 10 there; America got it the following April as the third, and it went to number 18 on Modern Rock Tracks and 34 on the Adult Top 40. Critics loved that piano riff and Martin's falsetto, and the riff has since been sampled far and wide. The video, which tells its story in reverse, won three MTV Video Music Awards, and the song has been a permanent part of their live shows since 2002.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.