War on Terror’s Impact on the Middle East Civilians in Coldplay’s Orphans Song Lyrics

Abstract

This article examines the war on terror’s impact in the Middle East civilians on the lyrical content of Coldplay's song "Orphans." The song lyrics feature a fictional narrative about a girl and her father who died due to bomb attacks on their hometown. Utilizing Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis approach, which involves social cognition, social context analysis, and textual analysis, it is deduced that the bombings depicted in the lyrics refer to the bombings in Damascus. This immediately relates to the Global War on Terror and how prejudice against Muslims and the Middle East, even its civilians, overlooks the negative impact that these people suffer. However, social cognition and context analysis help in discovering that Coldplay, a popular Western act composed of white men, did not remain silent about the suffering Muslims and Middle Easterners faced when most Westerners did. Instead, they voiced their perspective on the issue through fictional lyrics that favor Muslims and the Middle East in the ensuing conflict as part of their hope for people to unite regardless of their background and identity.

Keywords

• coldplay
• critical discourse analysis
• depiction of war
• orphans song
• war on terror