Chris Martin was desperate for his bandmates to start writing Coldplay songs.

The frontman, who shares writing credits with the other members of the group - Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland and Will Champion - was tired of having to come up with the initial ideas and wanted them to step in and contribute to the band's new album 'Ghost Stories' from the beginning of a song.

He said: ''For a long, long time I've been begging the band, 'Please could someone else start a song'.

''I've been given that gift from the universe or from God or whatever you want to believe in that ideas for songs get sent through wherever they get sent from and then I take them to the rest of the band and then we layer it up and that's how we do it.

''For a long time, I've been saying, 'Guy, I know that you write music sometimes, on your own, is there any way that you would give us some of it'. He's like, 'No, you won't like it'.''

But the 37-year-old singer was pleasantly surprised when Guy approached him last February and told him he'd been experimenting with ideas for a new track, which later became 'Magic', a song which features on the new album.

Chris explained: ''I was so grateful. It made me so happy and that was kind of a simple of the album as a whole, 'We'll help each other out here'. There were lots of songs but that was the first point where I thought, 'Everyone is invested in this, everyone knows what we're trying to do, go a bit more personal'.''