Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Tegan and Sara are back with an ode to the music of Coldplay on “Yellow.”
It’s been six (!) years since a full-length Tegan and Sara album. As the beloved sister duo gears up for the October 21st release of their tenth LP, Crybaby (via Mom + Pop Music), they’ve started rolling out previews of the new era, including their latest, “Yellow.” It’s no mistake that it bears the same name as one of the most famous love songs in recent decades — Coldplay’s “Yellow” — and is rather directly referencing it in the accompanying video.
No one’s ever going to walk down a gloomy beach in a music video for a love song involving the color yellow quite like Chris Martin, but Tegan and Sara sure land a great homage in their own visual. It’s a simple track led by acoustic guitar and a tight drum machine that keeps the lyrics front and center, allowing the story they tell in the song to remain the focus. Bruises and scars fade with time, they point out, and once they are no longer the severe black and blue, there’s still a period before skin is completely healed — a period where an area of injury turns yellow.
“‘Yellow’ was written after we began to take steps to heal the bruises we have both carried with us since adolescence and early adulthood — wounds that never quite healed right and flare up seasonally, sending us spiraling backward in time,” the two shared in a statement. “Are we doomed to remain forever 15, breaking up and breaking apart? I hope not.”
“Yellow” is an ode to times in between — healing is often a non-linear journey, and it’s certainly not always a pretty one. Each step of the journey, each day moving forward, matters, though, and that’s what Tegan and Sara have so thoughtfully captured here.
Get tickets to Tegan and Sara’s upcoming tour dates here.
— Mary Siroky
Contributing Editor