The title “Viva La Vida,” and the overall spirit of the album, were born from Chris Martin’s encounter with a painting by Frida Kahlo, Sandías con leyenda: Viva la vida. He told Rolling Stone that he gave both the song and the album that name when he saw this phrase, which means “long live life” or, more literally, “life lives.” What struck him was Kahlo’s own courage. As he explained, she had gone through an unbelievable amount in her life and yet still created a large painting in her house that said “Viva la Vida.” That boldness in the face of pain, that insistence on raising up life from right inside its ruins, was something that fascinated him