On May 25, 2008, the great British band Coldplay released the "Viva la Vida" single, from their fourth studio album, titled "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends".
The Viva la Vida song was written by Coldplay's band members: Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion and Chris Martin.
The song was distributed and released by Parlophone and Capitol Records, and it was produced by Markus Dravs, Brian Eno, Jon Hopkins and Rik Simpson.
"Viva La Vida" was released as the second single from the album. The free Viva La Vida piano sheets are stunning.
In Spanish, the song can be translated in two ways, "Long Live Life" or "Live the Life".
"Viva La Vida" has powerful Christian and historical influences. The song itself is composed from a repeating string section in unison with a digital processed piano with a timpani background. Playing "Viva La Vida's" sheet music expresses the powerful religious and historical influences.
Coldplay's song had a huge success. It jumped to the top position of the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot 100 quickly.
This was an important thing for the band, because it was their first number-one single in both the United States and United Kingdom.
In 2009, at the 51st Grammy Awards ceremony, Coldplay's single won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
In the US, the song was the sixth one to exceed the 4 million threshold for paid downloads.
By the year 2014, the song was sold in over 7 million copies worldwide and over 6 million alone by June of 2013.
The most powerful inspiration source for the song was a painting by 20th century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Its title, "Viva la Vida" gave the song's name. In the Spanish language, "viva" is often use to praise someone for something they did. The painting is actually an irony; one that is acclaiming life is physically suffering.
Chris Martin stated about the album's title that it clearly expresses the pain.
Other powerful influences that aided to the birth of this song were the religious ones. For example, "pillars of sand" is a reference to the biblical parable given by Jesus about the fool who built his house on sand, and the wise man who built it on solid rock, while "pillars of salt" is a reference to Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt.
The free Viva la Vida piano sheet music can be downloaded below. Enjoy and stay tuned for more.
