Sunrise

"Sunrise"
General information
Artist	Coldplay
Recorded	2018-2019
Studio	Les Studios Saint German (Paris, France)
Length	2:31
Labels
Producer(s)	Davide Rossi
Album	Everyday Life
Everyday Life track listing
"Sunrise"
"Church"

"Sunrise" is a song by Coldplay from their eighth studio album, Everyday Life. It is the first track on the first side of the album, Sunrise. It is an instrumental piece composed by the band's long-time friend and collaborator, Davide Rossi.

Background and recording

Initially, "Sunrise" was a little piano melody that Chris Martin had recorded on his phone. While working in the studio with producer Bill Rahko and Davide Rossi in the spring of 2018, Chris played a few chords of the song on the piano; Davide began writing a violin melody on top of it as he “immediately felt something special about it.” After that, Chris asked him to record a live demo of the melody before they would start working on other songs.

In July 2019, Chris called Davide to fly to Paris in order to arrange the demo, adapting the violin and piano parts for a string orchestra, which took two days to be completed. "Sunrise" was first intended for the band's next studio album Music of the Spheres; however, after listening to the final recording, it was included as the opening track on Everyday Life. The song features only Rossi on the strings and was finalised in Les Studios Saint Germain, Paris.

Composition

In a ranking of the band's entire discography, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the release of Parachutes, NME described the song as a “gorgeous, well-paced, crying, sighing opener setting up the record to follow with romantic and cinematic verve.”

Promotion

On 19 October 2019, the band uploaded on their social media accounts a snippet from the final 15 seconds of the song, which was used in the band's first material to promote the Everyday Life album, revealing part of the cover art along with “November 22, 1919” written on it, announcing its release date.

Official audios

Coldplay - Sunrise (Lyric Video)

Sunrise

Critical reception

British music journalism website NME said the song “sets the tone beautifully with a major/minor string arrangement that could be from a war film soundtrack” and “the lead violin plays an at once mournful and hopeful timbre: a perfect representation of Martin's note on the duality of good and bad.”