“Higher Power” is a song that arrived on a little keyboard and a bathroom sink at the start of 2020 and was mentioned briefly during the TogetherAtHome livestreamed concerts. According to Chris Martin, “the song is about trying to find the astronaut in all of us, the person that can do amazing things”.

On April 30th, the band inadvertently released an advert of the song with a snippet of the music a week early, which was quickly deleted 30 minutes after it was posted. On May 3rd, a post was made on the official Coldplay TikTok featuring a new clip of the song, lasting 26 seconds.

The song was finally released on May 7th, alongside an online conference with French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who was aboard the ISS. Martin explained to him:

Right now we aren’t able to play for anybody on Earth, so we thought we’d just play for you.