Guest spots are ten-a-penny these days, but this is rather a special one.
After Rihanna had a turn on Princess of China from 2011 album Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay have seriously upped the ante by recruiting US president Barack Obama to feature on a track on their forthcoming new album, A Head Full of Dreams.
The band approached both The White House and the Emanuel African Episcopal Church to request permission to use an audio clip from the funeral of Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, which took place in June, earlier this year. Pinckney was one of the victims of the Charleston church shooting which happened earlier in the same month.
Obama delivered the eulogy and sang the opening line of Amazing Grace at the funeral, and both parties agreed that Coldplay could use the clip.
Chris Martin told The Sun: “We have a tiny clip of the president singing Amazing Grace at that church. Because of the historical significance of what he did and also that song being about, ‘I’m lost but now I’m found’.”
Obama is known to be a Coldplay fan - previously revealing that he listened to the band's 2011 hit Paradise - and he joins a host of star guests on the new album, including Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher and Martin's ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow.
The first single, Adventure of a Lifetime, was revealed recently, with the album, A Head Full of Dreams coming on 4 December. Last week, the band announced the first dates of an expected world stadium tour, including UK shows in Jun 2016 in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
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