This week Jim Adam’s prompt for Song Lyric Sunday is “July 24, 2022– Feature a song by a group or an artist that surprisingly never reached #1 on the charts –
Well 2006 I was in my early fifties and things were not brilliant but I was coping. I was a very big fan of Snow Patrol and Chasing cars was definitely a favourite of mine. Now if you read below you wil see how long it was in the charts and the awards it won. I believe it’s one of the best songs ever written so that begs the question how was it never Number One?
“Chasing Cars” is a song by Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol. It was released as the second single from their fourth studio album, Eyes Open (2006). It was recorded in 2005 and released on 6 June 2006 in the United States and 24 July 2006 in the United Kingdom.The song gained significant popularity in the US after being featured in the second seasonfinale of the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, which aired on 15 May 2006.
“Chasing Cars” was one of the songs that revealed the impact of legal downloads on single sales in the UK, selling consistently for years after its release. The song is Snow Patrol’s biggest-selling single to date, ending 2006 as that year’s 14th best-selling single in the UK. It was the last song performed live on the BBC’s Top of the Pops that year. Released in the post-Britpop period, the song peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards in 2007, “Chasing Cars” was nominated for Best Rock Song, and at the 2007 Brit Awards it was nominated for Best British Single. As of 2019, the song has spent 111 weeks in the official UK top 75, 166 in the top 100 and had sold over one million copies in the UK by October 2013. It has also sold 3,900,000 copies in the US by January 2015, making it one of the top best-selling rock songs in the digital era. In 2009, UK music licensing body PPL announced that “Chasing Cars” was the most widely played song of the decade in the UK. Ten years later, it was revealed as the most-played song of the 21st century on UK radio.
Lead singer Gary Lightbody reportedly wrote the song when he became sober after a binge of white wine, in the garden of song producer Jacknife Lee’s Kent cottage. The song has Lightbody singing a plain melody over sparse guitars, which has an ever-building crescendo. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said “It’s the purest love song that I’ve ever written. There’s no knife-in-the-back twist. When I read these lyrics back, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ All the other love songs I’ve written have a dark edge.” The phrase “Chasing Cars” came from Lightbody’s father, in reference to a girl Lightbody was infatuated with, “You’re like a dog chasing a car. You’ll never catch it and you just wouldn’t know what to do with it if you did.” All information from Wikipedia
Above Ed Sheeran singing Chasing Cars and he is joined by Gary Lightbody it’s a beautiful version of the song.
HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE 💜
willowdot21 