Us Against the World

Mylo Xyloto is a concept album in which the two protagonists, Mylo and Xyloto, meet, fall in love and run away together. Frontman Chris Martin told Music Week how this song fits together with the storyline. He explained: "The whole thing is supposed to be a kind of story so they all fit together and that is the two characters from the previous two songs when they meet each other. It's about meeting someone you love and feeling powerful, when you meet someone and suddenly everything feels alright again."

Bassist Guy Berryman revealed to Music Week that Mylo Xyloto was originally going to be a soundtrack album to a film the band were writing with a storyline. He explained: "We got quite far down the line with designing characters and then we abandoned that idea and moved into a different direction, retaining elements of the acoustic album and the soundtrack album, so what we've ended up with is an album that we arrived at in quite an unusual sort of way. So it's kind of a hotchpotch of all those different phases."

New York graffiti and an anti-Nazi movement are two of the lyrical inspirations for the album. Chris Martin explained to Q magazine: "The ideas come from graffiti art of the '70s in New York, where people were expressing themselves with paint. Then there was the White Rose Movement. Anybody who's standing up for themselves. It's about being free to be yourself and to express yourself among negative surroundings. Being able to speak out or follow your passion, even if everybody seems against it."