The central metaphor of this Ghost Stories track is that love is like a tattoo, as being written in ink can hurt, but is a great deal more painful to remove. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin separated from his wife Gwyneth Paltrow in March 2014 after a decade of marriage. The singer told BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe the issues the pair were having influenced the writing on Ghost Stories. "Up to a certain point in my life I wasn't completely vulnerable and it caused some problems," he said. "If you don't let love in then you can't really give it back. So what Ghost Stories means to me is like, you've got to open yourself up to love and if you really do, of course it will be painful at times, but then it will be great at some point."
The animated music video finds a traveller looking for a lost love. The clip is interactive and viewers are able to make selections that will determine what they see. There are more than 300 possible outcomes to the story. The visual was written, directed and animated by the Los Angeles agency Blind.
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