I’ll be the first to admit that this post is going to be a bit strange. I watched the Super Bowl 50 halftime show and someone mentioned the fact that Coldplay got some flack for one of the songs they sang. So I looked it up. That’s the video above, ‘Hymn for the Weekend.’ Apparently there is some people that are a bit upset by the fact that the video plays into stereotypes about India and Hinduism. I can’t speak authoritatively on the subject, but I can say that there is probably some truth to it.
However, I went to go find out about the controversy and got a bit distracted when I looked for information about Chris Martin, the lead singer of the band. As it turns out, Chris Martin is the great-great-grandson of a English gentleman named William Willett.
Mr. Willett seems to have been a man of modest means and Wikipedia at least lists his profession as ‘inventor.’ I don’t know if this is a way of saying that he was perpetually poor or if he actually created some interesting, useful, or successful things.
At any rate, what he is known for today is Daylight Savings Time. THE daylight savings time. No, he didn’t invent the idea. No, neither did Benjamin Franklin. But he is the man that made the idea popular. He seemed to have calculated the savings it would have for Great Britain, which is how he sold the idea. It apparently became quite a passion of his. Eventually, he convinced a British Member of Parliament to support the idea, who proposed numerous times to make it law.
The idea didn’t catch on until Britain was in dire straits because of World War I. At the time, they were looking at anything to save money, which switching did. In fact, during the War, basically all of the warring parties switched during summer time.
This whole thing led me down a rabbit’s hole, as I find the world’s discomfort with daylight savings time to be fascinating. Countries using it for a time then stopping, using it during wartime but not during peacetime, countries using it during summers except during Ramadan. Uruguay has an absolutely incredible history with the time change!
Well, I just have to turn off the computer so I stop reading about the odd phenomenon. I highly encourage you to look into it more!
Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, has a surprising connection with William Willett, a man famous for Daylight Savings Time. (Photo credits: Mr. Martin by Kevin Winter/Getty Images and
Mr. Willett by Elliott & Fry, National Portrait Gallery)