The 11 best songs by Snow Patrol

Why have a top 10 when you can have one more? We rank the 11 greatest Snow Patrol tracks

In an alternate universe, there’s a version of Snow Patrol’s career that ends in the final hours of 4 December 2003. On that day, four months after the release of their make-or-break third album, Final Straw, the band have just played a gig at a strip club somewhere in Buckinghamshire to just 10 people – five of whom were in the support band. In this alternate universe, the band are so disheartened they call it quits in the dressing room after the gig and begin new lives. Fortunately, that is not the universe we inhabit.

Already a band for a decade at the time of that poorly attended show, Snow Patrol had barely made a ripple in the public consciousness with their angular, fuzzy yet undeniably pop-loving indie rock, led by the soaring vocals of Gary Lightbody. Then, in early 2004, as a real final throw of the dice, they would release a ballad named ‘Run’, and everything changed. Final Straw, which had barely sold at all, was re-released and repackaged, and the band’s profile exploded. Not long after they were in arenas, then they were topping festival bills. In this, their 30th year, their career sales sit at over 10 million records, and a new album, The Forest Is The Path, is on the way after a headline slot at BBC Radio 2 In The Park and a massive 2025 UK arena tour.

To celebrate the band’s return and the continued power of Lightbody’s songwriting, we run down the best songs of Snow Patrol’s career.

11. ‘Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking’

(Final Straw, 2003)

The penultimate track on Final Straw, ‘Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking’ quickly became a fan favourite as that fanbase was quickly expanding. A slow-burning, shimmering gem that has become a staple of the band’s live set for the last 20 years.

10. ‘Take Back The City’

(A Hundred Million Suns, 2008)

The lead-off single from 2008’s A Hundred Million Suns, ‘Take Back The City’ is a stirring piledriver that’s all about Lightbody’s love of his native Belfast, it’s “broken records and words” about as close to politics as the band get on something this tastefully glam.

9. ‘An Olive Grove Facing The Sea’

(When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up, 2001)

Taken from their second album, When It’s All Over We Still Have To Clean Up, ‘An Olive Grove Facing The Sea’ is a fragile, aching lament that gave a hint as to the power and gift for melody that their later works would show off in full. It’s sprawling and lacking in the sheen of what they would go on to do, but it has a magic all of its own.

8. ‘Wow’

(Final Straw, 2003)

Another cut from Final Straw, ‘Wow’ is one of the more angular offerings from that album. A fuzzed-up piledriver which owes a good deal to Pixies and Sonic Youth, it stills sounds fiery and alive.

7. ‘Run’

(Final Straw, 2003)

The song that changed it all for the band. An enormo-ballad with a skyscraper-sized chorus that has made it a karaoke favourite in the years since its release. It went Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, and even had a second life courtesy of The X-Factor winner Leona Lewis who covered the track in 2007. It has been a staple of film and TV ever since – every time a music editor wants to give a scene some irresistible lovelorn power, ‘Run’ is always going to be on the shortlist.

6. ‘Chasing Cars’

(Eyes Open, 2006)

It is impossible to write any list of the best Snow Patrol songs and leave out ‘Chasing Cars’. The arms aloft ballad to end all arms aloft ballads. The most widely played song of the noughties in the UK. The most-played song of the 21st century on UK radio. The “purest love song that ever written” by Lightbody, and the song everyone still probably thinks was the official theme for Greys Anatomy.

5. ‘Chocolate’

(Final Straw, 2003)

A perfect marriage of glimmering pop and angular indie, ‘Chocolate’ is still one of the band’s best-loved moments. It also has nothing to do with chocolate and everything to do with the existential angst of growing up at 25 (“this could be the very minute / I’m aware I’m alive”).

4. ‘How To Be Dead’

(Final Straw, 2003)

The opening track on Final Straw is a strange, eccentric thing. A twinkly lo-fi track about a petty argument between lovers and regrets, it eventually explodes into life and embraces its inner epic. It’s classic Snow Patrol.

3. ‘Set Fire To The Third Bar’

(Eyes Open, 2006)

A duet with folk singer Martha Wainwright from 2006’s Eyes Open, ‘Set Fire To The Third Bar’ is a tender ballad with a country feel and a production more understated than the band’s trademark. Wainwright’s voice, which is subtle and soft, compliments Lightbody’s more bombastic take perfectly to deliver a soaring piece of confessional emotion.

It’s still a firm live favourite, and, over the years, Wainwright’s role has been played on stage by Lissie, Minnie Driver, Lisa Hannigan and even Cheryl Cole.

2. ‘Open Your Eyes’

(Eyes Open, 2006)

When it comes to epic sing-a-longs, it’s ‘Run’ and ‘Chasing Cars’ that will always spring to mind, but ‘Open Your Eyes’ is the band’s true triumph. It’s subtler, but more impactful and just as soaring, building to the band’s most triumphant finish – misting eyes on Greys Anatomy, ER and Gossip Girl again, sure, but also graduating to the official theme of Barack Obama’s 2008 winning presidential campaign.

1. ‘Spitting Games’

(Final Straw, 2003)

‘Run’ is the single that changed it all for the band, but its predecessor, ‘Spitting Games’ is actually the band’s finest moment. It’s everything good about Snow Patrol – the arrangement is quirky but compelling, the melody is undeniable, and it sticks in your head from the moment you hear it. Indie rock has rarely had a bigger heart.