Coldplay’s “Church” Lyrics Meaning

Like many of its contemporaries, Coldplay’s “Church” uses religious metaphors to relay more down-to-earth ideas. And in this case, that would be the singer being in love. Thus the “church” he is referring to throughout is an allusion to the affection he receives from his significant other. 

In other words, her body – so to speak – is the “church” which he attends.  Thus he likens himself to a religious adherent who ‘worships’ her. And he is especially dependent when he is “hurt”. 

So this songs serves two basic functions. One is to express to said lady (the addressee) just how much the singer adores her. And the other is once again to articulate his emotional/romantic dependency on her.

Meaning of Arabic section of “Church”

But that being said, this song is not necessarily sacrilegious in nature either. Indeed there is an Arabic section, performed by a vocalist named Norah Shaqur, which in fact can be classified as an actual prayer. And in it, she initially feels forsaken by God. However, she ultimately seems to acknowledge Him as the source of “freedom” and “love”. 

And on the surface, this verse does not seem to have anything in particular to do with the rest of the song. However, the entirety of the album it is featured on, “Everyday Life”, has a number of such impulsive yet genuine religious references.

Conclusion

All in all, if you were to look at this track by stripping all of its religious citations and metaphors, which to some degree can be categorized as its gimmick, the idea it is fundamentally based on is a guy who is very much sweating his sweetheart.

Writing Credits

The extensive writing team behind “Church” includes the core members of Coldplay (Berryman, Champion, Buckland and Martin) in addition to the following:

• Amjad Sabri
• Mikkel Eriksen
• Tor Hermansen
• David Rossi
• Norah Shaqur
• Jacob Collier

Collier and Shaqur also provided vocals to the tune. FYI, Shaqur also provided additional vocals (as part of a choir) to another track on “Everyday Life” which is entitled “Arabesque”.

And the song’s producers are D. Green, B. Rahko and R. Simpson.

Colplay released “Church” via Parlophone Records on 22 November 2019 as part of their album “Everyday Life”.

Was “Church” released as a single?

“Church” wasn’t a single from “Everyday Life”. The album produced five official singles. They are as follows:

• “Orphans”
• “Arabesque“
• “Everyday Life”
• “Daddy”
• “Champion”

Does “Church” sample Moby’s “Porcelain”?

Officially, the song contains a sample. And the song sampled is Amjad Sabri’s “Jagah Ji Laganay”. But that being said, we strongly feel the song’s strings were inspired by Moby’s 2000 hit single “Porcelain“.