Coldplay Goes To Church

Chris Martin & Norah Shaqur tell the story of how Norah came to be featured on the “Everyday Life” song “Church”

On Nov. 22, 2019, 20 years after releasing their first single, “Brothers & Sisters,” the now-legendary British rock band Coldplay premiered the first half of their eighth studio album, “Everyday Life,” via a live sunrise performance in Amman, Jordan. They debuted the second half at sunset. It was a beautifully captured, technically ambitious, one-take performance featuring several of the album’s collaborators, such as Femi Kuti and Stromae. But first among the special guests was an olive-skinned woman in a flowing white dress singing what felt like a prayer in Arabic. 

أبي يا الله يا قادر، لماذا تركتني؟

أبي يا الله يا قادر

حرية يا الله

محبة يا الله

Abi ya Allah ya qadir, limaatha taraktani

Abi ya Allah ya qadir

Hurriya ya Allah

Mahaba ya Allah

Father, God almighty, why have you forsaken me?

Oh father God almighty,

Freedom, oh God

Love, oh God

That singer is Norah Shaqur, a Palestinian woman from Jerusalem. Anyone with a soul who has heard this song or watched the performance on YouTube, has likely immediately surrendered to her voice. In the comments on YouTube, users remarked that her voice gave them goosebumps and that they were moved to tears. One commenter said succinctly, “Norah Shaqur = The Voice of an Angel.” 

For Palestine in America, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and the woman with the voice of an angel, Norah Shaqur, recounted the story of how the song came to be. 

Shaqur: I was raised Christian in Jerusalem, and a big chunk of my childhood was going to the church with my grandma and my mother, so I learned to love my voice in the church. When mass would end, I would stay a little bit after and practice singing. I always loved how my voice replied back. I’ve always wanted to have a concert in a church here. 

Martin: I just love [Jerusalem]. To me it feels like the fountain of so much spirituality; even if people don’t agree on the specifics, everyone agrees that there’s a big magic that we’re all a part of. You can feel that humans have been feeling that way for centuries when you’re in Jerusalem. It makes me feel very connected to all beings, and all things, and it gives me great faith, not in a specific religion, but in the whole idea of magic, God, love, and the things that connect us.

Shaqur: An acquaintance of mine who has a transportation company in Jerusalem mentioned in our WhatsApp group about how he needed someone to guide this British band the next day on their travels, and of course when I found out who the British band was, I happily volunteered to show them around Palestine. 

Martin: The first time we were in Jerusalem, I think it was [2016]. 

Shaqur: It was the 22nd of November and it was a really busy day. 

Martin: A group of us came in on a bus. We had two guides and…

Shaqur: At the end of the day, when we got to the Old City, we parked the bus and we started walking in the Old City, and they were curious, and Chris was asking a lot of questions. We talked about pretty much everything — all the normal, mundane things, about culture, about music, religion, food, history, architecture, and we had to of course eat hummus and falafel at  Abu Shukri, the famous hummus place in the Old City, when... 

Martin: One of the guides said, “You have to let me sing for you.” And I thought that was such a cool, bold thing to say, so I said, “Okay!”

Shaqur: It was me; I was that guide. I still can’t believe I actually told Chris, “Too bad you’re leaving today, I would have loved to sing for you.” And he was kind enough to say, “Yeah, sure, I would love to hear you sing.” I thought he was just being courteous. Anyway, there wasn’t really a space or place for me to sing for him there, so the moment passed and we continued walking through the Old City until we got to the Holy Sepulcher.  

Martin: While walking around the Old City, she said, “Here, let's go in this church.”

Shaqur: It was the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, right next to the Holy Sepulcher. So the band went in, and I stayed outside to bargain with one of the vendors to get the band some souvenirs and some incense. While I was doing that, one of the security guys came to me and said, “Chris is waiting for you inside. You said you were going to sing for him.” So I walked in the church...

Martin: She said, “I’ve got a bit of a sore throat,” and proceeded to sound like all the angels in heaven. 

Shaqur: I sang my favorite hymn. It’s called “Ya Maryamou.” He liked it, I guess, because he asked me to sing another song, and I did. Then I sang another hymn in Aramaic. It felt amazing. It’s like God or the universe or the angel of singing was present. He seemed happy and touched, and I didn’t expect that. When I finished singing, he said how amazing it was and how he would love to stay in touch.

Martin: I recorded it on my phone, and when we were putting together the album, “Everyday Life,” I thought, “I wonder if that voice memo that I recorded would fit on this song.” And it kind of did. 

Shaqur: So we did stay in touch, and after a year or so, he invited me to Los Angeles to sing on “Everyday Life.” It was like a dream; I couldn’t believe it was happening. 

Martin: [In the studio] I was really just asking her to go free and do whatever she felt. 

Shaqur: Chris said, “I just want you to pray on this song.” I’m not very religious, but I think that if I wanted to pray, I would first express how abandoned I feel. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all sometimes feel that whoever’s supposed to be taking care of us has abandoned us. I mean, even Jesus felt that way, right? That was his last sentence on the cross. Also, when you pray, you ask for the most basic and simple things that we all want, right? Love and peace, as cliche as it sounds. This is what I would ask for, this is what my prayer would look like. 

Martin: She worked with one of our producers, Bill Rahko, and sang what came through, and that’s what I love about it. It sounds like it’s straight from the heart.

Shaqur: All that time I had kept it to myself. I never told any of my friends or family, so they all found out the day of the launch. I got so many texts and calls from them. The album launch also happened to be on the 22 of November, [three] years later, so I believe that the angel of singing was definitely with me from the beginning. I want to say I woke up early that day, but I actually never slept. To sing in front of millions on the internet at sunrise in Amman, it was scary and exciting and as magical as it could be. 

I performed with them again later that day at sunset. I recited a poem [“Bani Adam”] by Saadi Shirazi. The album version is in Persian, but the band decided that they wanted to make an Arabic version for the Jordanian audience, so I did that. 

Then, I was also invited to perform at a few more performances in Jordan, in London, and in the United States. They were all nothing short of magic. I keep saying magic, but it really felt that way.