What does Chasing Cars mean?

Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars Meaning

Album cover for Chasing Cars album cover
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Chasing Cars Lyrics

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too...

  1. anonymous
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    Jun 16th 2011 !⃝

    This song reminds me of a hopeless depressed young man that can see no way out, who doesnt want to think about anything it's to painful, just chase cars in our minds , He is not able to understand or connect with his own emotions , he feels numb And doesn't want to be alone he needs help but can never ask for it , he comes to believe that life is just misery and pain and he wants out, but wants to spend one last time with someone he cares deeply about but knows he doesn't have the capacity to be there for anyone because he thinks he could never be the person they want him to be because in his head he is a useless nobody and death is the only answer left,because he can't pretend anymore he has nothing more to give.

  2. Juno
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    Jun 11th 2011 !⃝

    For me this is now about talking with Jesus. It incorporates what everyone has said about love, but this is the perfect love.
    'I need your grace
    To remind me
    To find my own'
    A request to follow his perfect example of love, peace and forgiveness.
    'Show me your garden that's bursting into life' = the fruits of following Him.
    'Forget what we're told
    Before we get too old' = Ignore the influences of a warped modern society that strangles us before it is too late. One day we must account for our actions - a terrifying truth!
    I could go on. I know this won't work for everyone but it does for me.
    If it's false - it don't matter.
    If it's true - it's of infinite importance.
    Apologies if this goes against any rules of this website. Wasn't intended to offend.

  3. 2leg1t2qu1t
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    May 24th 2011 !⃝

    I have wrestled with the meaning of this song for quite some time. You see, lay is the verb meaning, "to put something down." Its past tense is "laid." Lie means to put oneself down. It's past tense is "lay" and its perfect is “have lain.” It just does not compute. But then, one blustery winter evening, on a trip to my grandfather's farm, it hit me. The entire lyrical landscape of this song was suddenly laid bare before mine own eyes! It's a haunting ballad wrenched from the depths of the barren Hen's soul. Snow Patrol puts words to her desolate squawks of sorrow as she pleads with the rooster, who is enthralled with fertile hens, to requite her love. "If [only] I lay here, would you lie with me?" "We'll do it all, everything on our own!" No other hens in the way! Hens who throw around "those three words," said far too much. For "they're not enough." But she knows, oh yes, she knows that as long as she cannot provide a roostery heir to the roostery throan, the roostery prince will never lie with her.

    So on her knees, she pleads, "Show Me!" "Show me a garden that is bursting into life!” Have you ever heard a line more pregnant with meaning? “All that [she is], all that [she] ever was is here in [his] perfect [roostery] eyes.” They are all that she can see. But, oh listener, listen well, for this tale is not a tale of miraculous joy. No, for Hen declares, “I don’t know where, confused about how as well just know that these things will never change for us at all.”

    Ever since that day, this song has never failed to bring a tear to my eye as I reflect on Hen’s tragedy. So I ask you, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Well, my friend, it is because it was chasing cars.


  4. anonymous
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    Apr 19th 2011 !⃝

    This song is about his dog. Nothing more. He really loved his Dog. Maybe he passed away.

  5. anonymous
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    Apr 8th 2011 !⃝

    i think this song is about how much we need to be one with christ. lay here and forget the world? i mean come on forgetting the world can only be done through a personal relationship with jesus christ. there is nothing in this world nor person that can honestly allow you to forget everything. "I need your grace
    To remind me To find my own" hello???? that doesnt need any explanation. oh and this part..."All that I am
    All that I ever was Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see " that to me is as if he is speaking to christ bc we should thrive to be christ like and looking into his eyes is how we should see ourselves. does anyone agree with me? this is the ONLY way intepret this song.

  6. anonymous
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    Mar 23rd 2011 !⃝

    I think this song is about him as a boy loosing his dog because it has been hit by a car, thus giving the song it's name "chasing cars".
    The singer says:
    " if I lay here,
    if I just lay here,
    would you lie with me and just forget the world," I belive he is talking about his dog in its last minute or so, he wants to spend the dogs last minutes holding it and making the dog forget everything around it so it can finally be at peice.
    Although more realistically the song will be written about the singer and his lover I like to think of the song as this because it reminds me of the day I lost my dog and I too was holding her in the middle of the road forgetting everything else that was going on around me.
    Rip lilly... <3

  7. anonymous
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    Mar 19th 2011 !⃝

    It's written from his dog's point of view and the love and devotion the dog has.

  8. Boomanchu
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    Mar 14th 2011 !⃝

    I think the part....
    "Let's waste time
    Chasing cars
    Around our heads" simply refers to how doing the simplest things can be all two people truly in love need.....like two grown ups just holding hands and jumping on a hotel bed laughing like lil kids.....or.....chasing cars in our heads, like carefree dogs that know they'll never catch the car but it's a blast trying. What could be simpler than a dog chasing a car?

  9. anonymous
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    Jan 26th 2011 !⃝

    The Interpretation of this song could be more than 3 pages, but to sum it up:
    For me it´s about two best friends.
    They lost each other, because they can´t be together. There could be many reasons...
    and he just want to lie there with him and not to have an regrets and just be in love, because that´s all they need.

  10. anonymous
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    Jan 25th 2011 !⃝

    To me this song is about a couple that is so inlove that the troubles of the world, and others opinions do not matter. All they want is one another. When I hear this song I see myself and my fiance being the only 2 people in the world. I am walking down the aisle to this song, as I feel it says exactly what I feel... I love you will never describe my feelings for him, and when I see him at the end of the aisle, he will be the only one in the world.

  11. anonymous
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    Jul 5th 2010 !⃝

    If it's not literally about an old, dying dog, then I don't know what else it could be about. Every sentence to this song, including the garden part, all remind me very clearly of a beloved dog I had growing up with me, and when his day of rest finally came, we did bury his ashes in a garden that just so happened to have bursted into life right after spring.

    Every line of this song just makes me feel like I should have loved him more while he was alive and with me because he grew older quite faster than I did. :'(

  12. anonymous
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    Jun 22nd 2010 !⃝

    Nothing makes me happier to hear that. I thought there was nothing left but hate in your heart for your “special friend”. Those words, yes they can be spoken…they have never changed. Please speak those words I’ve long to hear too, can you? Yes, the heart wants what it wants, I have learned you cannot control your heart no matter how hard you try....you just learn and adjust to live without your “one”. Even though you learn to adjust, it still leaves a “dead & listless” feeling that will never go away…a void that could never be filled by anyone. I need a sign to know it’s you, the other “special friend”. :)

  13. anonymous
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    Jun 21st 2010 !⃝

    I have waited so long for you. Please speak those words I long to hear, can you? My heart desires the unattainable, buy yet I still want it-- would sacrifice anything and everything for it... one night with you again... nothing else matters... the heart wants what the heart wants... I can't control it and I don't want to... I can't wait to see you, my love...

  14. amo
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    May 30th 2010 !⃝

    When I hear the lyrics to this song it reminds me of two people in love where one is terminally ill. "will you lie with me and just forget the world" - forget the illness, forget the sadness...just be presence. I think this is a song of mourning around something that can not be controlled like a terminal illness and realizing what is truly important in this world...love. "Those three words are said too much, they're not enough." When someone is ill it's not enough is it? And I would think two people in that situation would look around at the rest of the people in the world abusing those words without truly understanding them. "I need your grace to help me find my own" I think the person who is being left behind when the loved one dies is asking for help in "falling from grace." I sense anger here and a struggle for acceptance whereas the person who is dying has no choice but to accept destiny. This is a dark, dark song...I cry every time I hear it.

  15. anonymous
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    Mar 10th 2010 !⃝

    I also believe this song is about true love, a love you find once in a life time (and yes one that is with the right person but unfortunately at the wrong time, which did not allow the right to fight to keep that love in their life, even though it is meant to be); a love that continues to deepen with every minute of every day even though they are no longer in each other’s life, due to the others in their own life. The pain that lives in the heart is, for a moment, subsided by laying there “chasing cars” and having “sweat” dreams of that garden waiting to burst into life with their “special friend”. No, they don’t know how or when but when they finally have the opportunity to show each other that garden, they will forever be “chasing cars” and will never allow their true love to walk away ever again. They will someday “do it all, everything on their own because all that I am, all that I ever was, is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I see and feel every moment of every day. j:)




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