Coldplay Perform ‘Sunshine on Leith’ With Laura Mvula for BBC’s Radio 2 Piano Room

Chris Martin had only heard the Proclaimers single “Sunshine on Leith” for the first time three days before Coldplay performed a cover of the 1988 record for BBC’s Radio 2 Piano Room. But the frontman, who recently graced Rolling Stone‘s cover, felt an instant familiarity. “I’d never heard it before and it blew me away,” Martin told BBC. “It just gets me so much, that song.” British musician Laura Mvula joined Coldplay for the live performance in London at the BBC Maida Vale studios.

“There is a whole other world of music behind that song that I’ve just been discovering,” Martin added. “They’re a wonderful, wonderful band. Now, we live in the age of coolness doesn’t mean anything, just quality and soul. The Proclaimers, to me, make more sense than ever. This song is so astonishingly good and we’re gonna butcher it right now.”

“Sunshine on Leith” closed out Coldplay’s set which also featured their own classic singles “Viva La Vida” and “Paradise,” as well as “feelslikeimfallinginlove,” “All My Love,” and “The Karate Kid” from their latest album, Moon Music.

Martin thinks about Coldplay in a similar way to his description of the Proclaimers: the absence of coolness is where the magic is. “Coldplay has never been cool. Never will be cool. We might be Number One or we might be Number 100. None of it really matters,” he told Rolling Stone last year. “We get sent these songs and we do them for the people that like them, and even sometimes for the people who don’t like them, so that they can express some aggression at us safely.”

Coldplay only have plans to release two more albums, Martin has said. But each year, he finds a new piece of music, or an emerging artist — or in the case of “Sunshine on Leith,” something weathered but new to him — that sparks something within him. “Chris is never going to stop writing, so I kind of take it with a little bit of a pinch of salt,” Guy Berryman told Rolling Stone. “We’re still years away from any kind of retirement. But I think you have to have a plan.”