Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars' has been named the most-played song on UK radio in the past two decades.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody

Frontman Gary Lightbody admitted it's "unbelievable' that the 2006 track from their fourth album,' Eyes Open', which propelled them to global stardom, has made the feat, but he explained that the fact the ballad "unifies an audience" could have something to do with its on-going appeal.

He told the BBC: "It's unbelievable.

"I'm not sure how that happened.

"It's an emotionally open song and it's a simple song. "But it's also unabashedly a love song, and we don't really have any others.

"The way it unifies an audience is the thing I most cherish about it. It's a beautiful moment every time you play it."

The song was also featured in the hit medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy' and many TV shows.

Peter Leather, the chief executive of music licensing company PPL, said: "'Chasing Cars' is a song that has become a popular anthem, securing huge success across radio, in public and especially TV, where its huge appeal has led to its use in many programmes and especially 'Grey's Anatomy'."

The Northern Irish group - who formed in 1994 - recorded the song and "half" of the record with producer to the stars Jacknife Lee in his garden shed after a night on the vino.

Gary recalled: "Jacknife Lee had a studio in the shed of his garden and we went down there with a couple of bottles of wine, and we wrote through the night.

"In fact, we wrote 10 songs that night - and five of them ended up on 'Eyes Open', so that was pretty much half the album.

"Normally when you listen back to the music you wrote after a few glasses of wine, you go, 'Ah well, better luck next time'. But that particular evening, [we] gathered a lot of good stuff."

Meanwhile, 'I Gotta Feeling' by the Black Eyed Peas' and Pharrell's 'Happy' came in at second and third place respectively.

PPL awarded Gary, 43, with a award to mark the achievement.

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