Coldplay kicked off their week-long Late Late Show residency on Monday night (Oct. 18) with a beautiful whisper. Joined by Selena Gomez for the debut TV performance of “Let Somebody Go,” their soothing duet from the group’s just-released ninth album, Music of the Spheres.
With singer Chris Martin posted up behind his trusty upright piano — adorned with a series of celestial images in keeping with the album’s outer space vibe — the band opened in near-darkness as a series of pink bulbs slowly pulsed while Martin and Gomez sang, “to let somebody, to let somebody go.”
As Selena stood shrouded in the shadows, Martin gently sang about an endless love that he thought would last forever (“I loved you to the moon and back again”), only to see it slip away. Gomez joined in on the second verse, singing, “All the storms we weathered, everything that we went through/ Now without you what on Earth am I to do?”
Staring into each other’s eyes, they blended their voices to admit, “When I called the mathematicians and I asked them to explain/ They say love is only equal to the pain.” The collaboration kicked off a week’s worth of planned Late Late Show appearances by the group, who announced the dates for their 2022 sustainable and low-carbon stadium tour last week. The pledged that the outing will be be powered by 100% renewable energy, with a goal of cutting tour emissions by 50% from the group’s 2016-17 world outing and planting one tree for every ticket sold.
Watch the performance below.