Chasing records ... Snow Patrol track is most played

A SONG by Snow Patrol has become the most publicly played track of all time despite never topping the charts.

Figures released by PPL, a music licensing company, found that the band’s hit Chasing Cars had more air time than anything else.

The song peaked at No6 in the singles chart in 2006, and was that year’s 14th best-selling track. But its success is being attributed to how often it has featured on TV shows and in films.

PPL’S figures take into account all recordings of music released, including if they are played by radio and television broadcasters, or in public by businesses and organisations across the country.

The new analysis places the Northern Irish band ahead of the Black Eyed Peas and Pharrell Williams for overall plays, whose tracks I Gotta Feeling and Happy came second and third respectively.

“‘I’ve never been able to figure out entirely why it’s been such a success,” Gary Lightbody, lead singer of Snow Patrol, admitted. He told The Daily Telegraph: “It’s simple, it’s heartfelt, it’s honest – these are all things appealing to people and I don’t know why.”

Most famously, Snow Patrol’s anthem achieved fame after it was featured in the 2006 season two finale of the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, the medical drama.

In the same year, the producers of ER selected the track for a solemn scene in their own hospital saga. For Lightbody, it was the former show that changed everything for the band that had only performed in front of crowds of 40 and spent 10 years sleeping in the back of an old van on tour.

“I didn’t know Grey’s Anatomy but

‘It’s simple, it’s heartfelt, it’s honest – these are all things appealing to people and I don’t know why’

it’s been very good to us, so we are fond of it. They asked us whether they could use the track six weeks before it was on in America, so we had forgotten.

“It would have been during the UK bedtime, so we went to bed one night and woke up the next morning and Chasing Cars was number one on US itunes overnight,” he added.

Following that, the track was featured on BBC coverage of Wimbledon and in handfuls of Dancing on Ice skate-offs. It even found its way into Just Go With It, the 2011 Hollywood film, and Gavin and Stacey, the sitcom.