"Chasing Cars" should NOT be a song of the day!

Today, NPR's Song of the Day is "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol.

The Slow Build to a Crashing Finish by Allison Stewart

• Song: "Chasing Cars"
• Artist: Snow Patrol
• CD: Eyes Open
• Genre: Pop-Rock

Like Snow Patrol's ubiquitous ballad "Run," "Chasing Cars" is formulaic and obvious and utterly irresistible, built to play in trailers for romantic movies, and on soundtracks to Zach Braff movies.

Yes, it's built to play in those, and IT HAS.

I would suggest that you stream the song from the link above, but you might as well just listen to it ON THE RADIO or turn on ANY POPULAR TELEVISION SHOW and listen for about 5 minutes. (this includes about five Grey's Anatomy episodes, I'm sure, and at least one What About Brian?, and (even though I've never watched it) I'm sure a few The OC)

This song, however catchy, simply does not fit as a song of the day. If you don't remember, I was skeptical of Stewart's last pick, but I ended up giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Now I'm utterly sure that this person should not be writing about music. She should plant herself firmly behind her steering wheel listening to the Top 40 that has made her head bob since high school.

She does say something cute about "Chasing Cars":

Perhaps more than anything, it demonstrates how good Snow Patrol is at musical shorthand, at conveying great emotion with lyrical economy. "Chasing Cars" contains roughly a few dozen words, total, and its signature line ("Let's waste time / chasing cars / around our heads") suggests it might be a love song for dogs.

However, not only is this not very insightful and pretty obvious, but she ruins it when she shows off her bitterness about another similar band:

That's something Coldplay might want to consider, if Chris Martin and company ever get tired of writing songs about Gwyneth Paltrow.

Yeah, Chris Martin and company are the ones with the real problem, right Allison?

Allison, what do you think of the person you see in the mirror every morning? Or are you too distracted by your alarm clock's rendition of "Round Here" by Counting Crows?

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