Gary Lightbody industry, specifically how music is obtained by consumers. He questions the public's motive to buy the songs which they have already listened to, and blames Myspace for it. Of Snow Patrol, Lightbody has said that all albums they managed to sell in the early days were from touring, as there were no unauthorized copies of their music available then. He believes if the current state of the industry continues, it would become impossible for bands starting out to become full-time. Despite this, he observes that the band might not have survived if they had been successful early in their career,
Chasing Cars was voted the number one "song of the noughties". 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