This was never one of Coldplay’s biggest songs, but I always liked it.
“Talk” came out in 2005, when I was stumbling into adulthood. The song was typical quarter-life crisis stuff, full of lyrics about feeling lost or incomplete, and describing lofty ambitions like “climbing a ladder up to the sun” and “writing a song nobody has sung.” I was feeling the same optimistic-young-adult urge to do something that hadn’t been done.
The ironic thing about those lyrics is that songs about doing something nobody else has done…have already been done. Even the main riff from “Talk” had already been done; it was lifted directly (with permission, mind you) from Kraftwerk’s 1981 song “Computer Love.”
But then, that’s creativity, right? Taking bits and pieces of culture that you’ve absorbed and reconstituting them through your own aesthetic.
Which brings us to Canadian guitar wizard Antoine Dufour’s cover of “Talk.”
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. While Coldplay took Kraftwerk’s riff from a (mostly) instrumental track and gave it lyrics, Dufour brings it full circle and gives us an instrumental cover. And that Kraftwerk riff sounds fantastic done on muted harmonics.
2. Like fellow Canadian guitar wizard Don Ross, Antoine Dufour is great at implying percussion by striking the strings or the body of the guitar at just the right time.
3. While his take on the song is entirely its own thing, Dufour stays true to Coldplay’s version in several little details, like the slight change to the bass line at 4:06.
Recommended listening activity:
Finding the first message ever sent to you by someone close to you, and re-sending it to them with no explanation.