Snow Patrol

According to the count the PPL published on 17 July 2019, the most-played recording of the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom — adding together radio, television and playback in public places — is "Chasing Cars", by Snow Patrol. The song was never number one anywhere. It reached No. 6 in the United Kingdom and No. 5 on the US Hot 100, and from there it kept on playing for fourteen years until it took the title. That mismatch between impact and chart position explains fairly well a band that was never the most modern of its generation, barely a step to the side of Travis and Coldplay, and that ended up putting music to a lot of people's serious moments. Behind that emotional honesty, moreover, there was a singer who came close to not living to tell it.

Northern Irishmen who met in Dundee

The band's birthplace is usually told wrong. Snow Patrol is a Northern Irish group formed in Dundee, Scotland, in 1994 by three University of Dundee students: Gary Lightbody, born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, plus Mark McClelland and Michael Morrison. At first they were called Shrug. The Scottish members arrived later, and at no point were they an Irish band.

The first years were small-circuit and minimal sales. The formula appeared when Lightbody stopped hiding emotion behind irony: songs that start quietly, keep loading up and burst open in the chorus. Final Straw, from 2003, with "Run" as its spearhead, was the first record where that worked from beginning to end.

There is one detail the triumphal account tends to skip. Mark McClelland, co-founder and bassist, left the band in March 2005 — that is, just before worldwide success landed on them. Michael Morrison, the other founder, had already left the group earlier, after a personal crisis.

No. 6, No. 5 and not a week at the top

Eyes Open, from 2006, brought "Chasing Cars": a few chords that repeat and keep rising, and a lyric about staying still beside someone and shutting the world out. Its appearance in the Grey's Anatomy season finale pushed it everywhere, but what sustained it was something else: people adopted it for their own griefs and their own farewells.

The figures are modest and the result is out of all proportion. No. 6 in the United Kingdom, No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, fourteenth best-selling single of the year in the United Kingdom and ninety-four weeks in the British top 75. Never a week at No. 1, in any market.

And yet, in the PPL's 2019 count it is the most-listened-to recording of the century in the United Kingdom. It is worth saying it that way, with the date attached: the PPL has not updated that calculation since then, so the title belongs to 2019 and not to today. It is, with that caveat, the most-played song of the century that never reached number one.

Seven years before recording again

Seven years passed between Fallen Empires (2011) and Wildness (2018), and the explanation was not artistic. Around that record Lightbody recounted that after the 2012 tour he began drinking with the dedication a boxer puts into training for a fight. He would play full venues and hours later be crying on the floor of a hotel room. On top of that came a depression he had been managing in silence for years.

He stopped drinking when a doctor told him, bluntly, that either he stopped or he would die. By 2018 he had been two years sober, and only then did Wildness come out. The silence of those seven years was not writer's block or a label strategy: it was a man trying not to disappear. It is worth saying because it changes the meaning of the whole earlier catalogue. A band whose thesis is to sing emotion head-on, with no distance and no cynicism, turns out to have had its author doing exactly the opposite in private. The honesty of the songs was real; that of the man who wrote them took longer to arrive.

A trio and the only founder left

Today's band has little to do with the one from Dundee. In September 2023 drummer Jonny Quinn and bassist Paul Wilson left at the same time. Three remained: Lightbody, the only founder still standing, guitarist Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid, who is also a regular co-writer of much of Ed Sheeran's recent songbook.

With that line-up they released The Forest Is the Path on 13 September 2024, thirty years after the university rehearsals. They are still doing the same as always, with fewer people and with the author sober.

What to remember

Snow Patrol left two things that do not quite fit their reputation as a comfortable band. The first is a song that, according to the PPL's 2019 count, is the most-played recording of the century in the United Kingdom without ever having won a single week at the top of any chart: "Chasing Cars" stalled at No. 6 and still won by attrition. The second is that the group went seven years without a record because its author was at the bottom of the well.

That Wildness exists is, in fact, the result of a medical warning heeded in time. If anyone recognises themselves in that account, in Chile SENDA's Fono Drogas y Alcohol takes calls free of charge on 1412, and the Ministry of Health's suicide prevention line, *4141, operates twenty-four hours a day. None of this takes anything away from the songs: it adds to them, because the last ones were written by someone who decided to carry on.

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Sources

Snow Patrol is a Northern Irish alternative rock band formed in 1994 in Dundee, Scotland, by three University of Dundee students: Gary Lightbody (born in Bangor, Northern Ireland), Mark McClelland and Michael Morrison; it was initially called Shrug. The album "Final Straw" (2003) included "Run". Mark McClelland left the band in March 2005, before its international success; Michael Morrison had left it earlier, after a personal crisis. The album "Eyes Open" (2006) included "Chasing Cars", which reached No. 6 in the United Kingdom and No. 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100, was the fourteenth best-selling single of the year in the United Kingdom and spent ninety-four weeks in the British top 75; it never reached No. 1 in any market. On 17 July 2019, the PPL declared it the most-played recording of the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom, taking into account radio, television and playback in public places; the PPL has not updated that count since 2019. Gary Lightbody has recounted that after the 2012 tour he developed problem drinking, accompanied by depression, and that he stopped drinking after a doctor warned him that he was at risk of death; by 2018 he had gone two years without drinking. That period explains the seven years between "Fallen Empires" (2011) and "Wildness" (2018). In September 2023 drummer Jonny Quinn and bassist Paul Wilson left the band; since then it has been a trio made up of Gary Lightbody, the only active founder, Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid, a regular co-writer of Ed Sheeran songs. Their latest album is "The Forest Is the Path", released on 13 September 2024. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, PPL, Official Charts Company, Billboard, The Guardian and other press coverage.