Songfacts®:

• Coldplay frontman Chris Martin wrote this song on the day of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Martin described the tragic event as a "realization of mortality," adding, "I wrote the song on 9/11 and we recorded it on 9/13. We were all, like everyone else I suppose, a little confused and frightened. I get off tour and had a rest for one or two days, but then I get antsy again. I want to write songs and do things 'cause you never know what might happen. You got to live in the moment."
• "Politik" is one of Coldplay's heaviest songs, with the band pounding at their instruments in dramatic unison. In 2002, Martin explained to Billboard Magazine that he wanted it to channel the feeling of urgency he had after 9/11: "We wanted a song where we just hit our instruments as loudly as possible and dispensed with the idea of fragility."
• According to Martin, this song originally opened with the couplet:
  
  Look at Earth from outer space
  Isn't this a crazy place?
  
  Martin eventually changed the second line after showing it to Coldplay drummer Will Champion. "Will quickly glared at me and gave me that look," said Martin. "He thought the line to be cheesy, too trite, and now, looking back - it was."
• Phil Harvey, Coldplay's manager, came up with the idea to spell this song title with a "k." Martin added to Crud Magazine in 2002: "We liked it because it sounds Eastern."
• On February 23, 2003, Coldplay performed "Politik" alongside the New York Philharmonic at the Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden. Champion said of the song choice: "It really seemed like the only appropriate song to play. It's the song that's able to say everything for us. We're on our way to war, the Grammys are in New York City. It's the only song we felt right about playing."
  
  The band also won two awards that evening: Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal for "In My Place" and Best Alternative Music Album for A Rush of Blood to the Head.
• "Politik" served as the show opener throughout the A Rush Of Blood To The Head Tour. Coldplay also performed it as part of their headline slot at Glastonbury Festival on June 25, 2005. Martin changed the lyrics to mark the occasion, paying tribute to Glastonbury founder and organizer Michael Eavis:
  
  Give me weather that does no harm, yeah
  Michael Eavis of Worthy Farm
  Give me mud up to my knee
  The best festival in history
• This song appears in The 11th Hour, a 2007 documentary film about climate change directed by Nadia Conners and Leila Conners and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film also has contributions from Russian politician Mikhail Gorbachev, British physicist Stephen Hawking, and Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai.
• "Politik" is the opening song on Coldplay's sophomore studio album, A Rush of Blood to the Head. According to Martin, the album title means "doing something on impulse." During an interview with MTV in 2002, he added: "Maybe some of the songs on the last record were slightly more relaxed, because we were in a relaxed state of mind."