Coldplay

“Warning Sign“ is about a man who is looking for excuses or reasons to leave his lover. He is afraid of commitment and looks for warning signs that will tell him he should leave. After looking for "warning signs", he realizes he misses his lover and he took her for granted ("you were an island and I passed you by"). Luckily, she is willing to come back, as you can see in the line, "So I crawl back into your open arms." Coldplay frontman Chris Martin confirmed “Warning Sign“ was inspired by his split from British live events producer Lily Sobhani. Martin broke up with Sobhani while promoting the band's debut album, Parachutes. Following their split, Sobhani went on to produce a number of music events, including the Live 8 and Live Earth benefit concerts. Martin hated this song, so much so he tried to remove it from A Rush of Blood to the Head and refused to perform it live. Speaking about his intense dislike for“ Warning Sign“, Martin explained to Crud Magazine in 2002: "The reason I don't like the song 'Warning Sign' is that it makes you feel sorry for the singer, whereas in fact I know it was written at a time when I was being a total knob. And that's the great joy of music is that one can present oneself as a romantic hero, whereas in fact in real life, that was written in one of my immense periods of being a dickhead." During an episode of VH1's Storytellers series, guitarist Jon Buckland said he labored for more than a year trying to come up with a part to play in this song. "I wound up playing maracas on the recording," he said with a laugh. "Warning Sign" features in the Zach Braff-starring movie The Last Kiss. Braff is a big fan of Coldplay and also included the Parachutes cut “Don't Panic“ in the Grammy Award-winning Garden State: The Soundtrack. This song also appears in the episode "Him" of the popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It plays as Dawn Summers finds out her sister, Buffy, has been hooking up with Dawn's high-school crush, R.J. Coldplay almost released this song as the second single from A Rush of Blood to the Head, but it was eventually replaced by “The Scientist“. This is the eighth song on Coldplay's sophomore studio album, A Rush of Blood to the Head. Much of the record deals with the fallout of fame following the international success of the band's debut album, Parachutes. During an interview with MTV in 2002, Martin offered more detail: "Perhaps there's a bit more urgency on some of these songs. And that's born from all the places we've been and the things we've experienced. Some of our friends have died or some of us have fallen in love. Some of us have fallen out of love and some of us have been to Haiti and some of us have been to Australia. Some of us have met Bono and some of us have met someone with nothing. It's like a massive culture gun fired at our heads. All this stuff has been happening to us, and now we have the opportunity to put it into some songs."