December 2009 M34 profile 33 Chasing Cars worked because it has an emotion that people can relate to I would have handled that well.' Snow Patrol's breakthrough moment came in 2003, when their single Run, from the aptly titled make-or-break album Final Straw, became a huge hit. `I was sitting in my flat in Glasgow on a dark day, feeling a little depressed,' says Lightbody of the song's genesis. `It was before the second album was released, and at that time I writing so much -- five or 10 songs every day, with the guitar a constant companion. Run was a product of me almost gasping for air in this isolating environment.' Run is now known all over the world, partly because Leona Lewis recorded a version of it in 2008. How does that feel for its creator? `You get an attachment to songs you write when you play them live,' he says. `Playing Run in front of a large audience reminds me why I wrote it in the first place. When people sing the words back to you a song has a new kind of collective meaning and that can be very powerful. But when I think about how I felt when I wrote it back then, on my own, I'm utterly amazed now at how I feel when I play it now, in front of thousands of people.' It is Chasing Cars, however, that Snow Patrol will always be remembered for. The song wasn't the product of a divine moment of inspiration, but a long drinking session with Snow Patrol's producer Garret Lee. `We were drinking heavily and playing guitars, and every time I had an idea for a song Garret would hit the record button,' Lightbody remembers. `I came up with the melody to Chasing Cars that evening without thinking too much about it, and the next day I put the words over the top. I don't want to explain away the meaning of the words as everyone has their own interpretation and I wouldn't want to diminish that for them, but I think the song worked because it has an emotion that people can relate to.' Chasing Cars changed everything for Snow Patrol. From being a struggling indie group from Belfast via Dundee and Glasgow, they became a stadium-filling phenomenon. Lightbody may not have quite got used to this idea -- he constantly apologises for his limited musical skills throughout filming, and there's really nothing to apologise for -- but surely success must have left its mark. After Chasing Cars, Lightbody was no longer writing in isolation. He was writing songs in the knowledge that a lot of people would hear them. It could have frozen the creative process, but he claims that as of yet, the dreaded spectre of writers' block hasn't hit him. `Being on the road in America so much definitely affected my songwriting. You can almost hear the whirr of the tour bus on [2008 single] Take Back The City,' he says, before concluding: `I have a pretty comfortable way with melody that never seems to desert me. Words can be harder and they generally come later. I've learned an awful lot along the way, but I wouldn't change the haphazard way I come up with songs, which is to play the guitar until I come across a tune accidentally and be thoroughly surprised when it's any good. It's more fun that way.' We go behind the scenes of Songbook p.46 collection,' he says. `Yet from early on in my life I knew that this was what I wanted to do. The big turning point was when Nevermind by Nirvana came out. I was 15 when I went to see them play in Belfast in 1992. The gig was utter chaos and incredibly exciting, and I remember thinking: I want that. I decided I would be a rock star by the time I was 18. By the time I hit 27 and was still penniless that adolescent ego was smashed out of me somewhat.' It's the years in the wilderness that helps songwriters succeed in the long term. All of the men and women we have interviewed for Songbook spent years chipping away at their craft before hitting success, and subsequently have had careers that continue well past the first flush of youth. Lightbody is no exception. It was 10 years before Snow Patrol got as much as a whiff of recognition. That decade of obscurity gave their singer a wealth of experience to draw on, as well as the emotional maturity to deal with fame and the attention ­ positive and negative ­ that it brings. `We had years of driving around in a shitty van, doing gigs in front of 30 or 40 people, all five of us sleeping on the living room floor of whoever would have us,' he says. `If you have a hit on your debut record you skip up to the top too fast. There's no way Snow patrol Final.indd 33 7/12/09 15:01:07