profile 31 below: Gary Lightbody performs on Songbook quicker. It's the marriage of the two that counts, as I wouldn't claim to be particularly adept at either.' There is something else the writer of a great pop song needs: solitude. `I was an insular, moody teen,' he says. `Writing pop songs was a way of being on my own and getting all my feelings out, even though no-one was listening to them at the time. They were like excerpts from a diary.' It certainly wasn't his parents that inspired the young Lightbody to write songs. His mother was a fan of the bespectacled Greek superstar Nana Mouskouri, while his father owned records by Somerset's `scrumpy and western' legends The Wurzels. `No offence to mum and dad, but there was nothing of any substance in the family record Snow patrol Final.indd 31 7/12/09 15:00:23