Yellow

Recently, early Coldplay songs have made a comeback with my teenage guitar students. I had forgotten how extraordinary these songs were, specifically from the first two albums, Parachutes and Rush of Blood to the Head. With “Yellow” I wanted to do a fingerstyle arrangement that was minimalist and subdued — away from the driving nature of the original song.

Composer, Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones) famously created cover arrangements for another HBO production, Westworld. Rather than make a generic sing-along backing track, he would take a song like Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box,…