At the end of the week, Lizzo will release her fourth album Special, which comes three years after her Platinum-selling, Grammy-winning third album Cuz I Love You. Ahead of the release of Special, Lizzo unveiled the tracklist for the project, and what caught many people’s attention is the album’s closing track, “Coldplay.” The song’s title left many to wonder what the song is about, during a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Lizzo gave some insight into the record.
“This is one of the most literal songs I’ve ever written,” Lizzo said about the song according to Rolling Stone. “Everything I say in the song actually happened.” The song is produced by Ricky Reed, who put together a piano loop and pushed Lizzo to just talk over the instrumental, and what resulted was a sprawling and lengthy tale about a lovestruck vacation she was on. Afterward, Lizzo said she felt “raw and sensitive” about the song and simply wanted to move on, but Ricky had other plans, as he crafted her monologue into a song. Elsewhere in the interview, Lizzo confirmed that the song also has some direct references to Coldplay, and this led to a FaceTime call with Chris Martin during the sit-down.
“I was with somebody, and I was just looking at the stars,” Lizzo said to Martin after she thanked him for letting use the band’s name for the song, which also samples Coldplay’s “Yellow.” “And I was with him, and I was singing it. And tears just were coming to my eyes. You have such an incredible ability to move people with the poetry of your lyricism. So thank you so, so much.”
“Hey, I don’t know how to accept those kinds of compliments,” Martin replied. “Thank you. If someone had told me 22 years ago, ‘One day, Lizzo’s going to make out to this song,’ I’d be like, ‘Okay, great.’ It’s become Lizzo’s hookup song, and that’s good.” Lizzo gleefully added, “Oh, that’s baby-making music, baby!”
Special is out 7/15 via Nice Life and Atlantic. You can pre-save it here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.