Those three words/
Are said too much/
They’re not enough.
The mystery about this song is what the “chasing cars” lyric has to do with anything in the rest of the song. In the rest of the song Snow Patrol does a great job of expressing what the narrator is feeling. In “Chasing Cars”, the narrator contemplates his feelings while lying next to his love in a field or bed. He feels love for her, but feels saying “I love you” express too much; and too little. The song is about young love and the inability to express your feelings to another person. Love is ineffable.
There are so many lines in this song that are perfectly expressed, like the above, and:
All that I am/
All that I ever was/
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see.
The girl clearly loves him too and he can tell by the way she looks at him. It makes him imagine his best self that he can see in her eyes. He imagines that laying here with her would be enough for him to satisfy him forever.
“Chasing Cars” has simple instrumentation with the standout being the two-note alternating guitar pattern that continues throughout the song. In order to add variety, light distortion is added to the guitar in later verses, and piano in others. I have always thought that the ending was appropriate. While not something that immediately jumps out at you, the song just stops. Kind of like the author is being snapped back to reality from his reverie.
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 much
They’re not enough
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
Let’s waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see
I don’t know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Songwriters: Natah Connolly / Gary Lightbody / Jonathan Quinn / Tom Simpson / Paul Wilson