About Chasing Cars

"Chasing Cars" is a song by Scottish-Northern Irish 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 season finale of the popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy, which aired on 15 May 2006. "Chasing Cars" became notable as 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 and that year had the distinction of being the last song performed live on the BBC's Top of the Pops. 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.