Snow Patrol
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50 free Snow Patrol trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
If a chorus that pleads with someone to open their eyes is stuck in your head, the song you are after is Open Your Eyes by Snow Patrol, a 2007 single from the album Eyes Open. It has followed people around for years through television finales, sports coverage and even an election campaign, and it is only one chapter of a much longer story. Snow Patrol spent close to a decade as a struggling indie band before Run and Chasing Cars turned them into one of the biggest groups to come out of Northern Ireland. This quiz covers that whole journey: the student beginnings in Scotland, the years of empty venues and unpaid rent, the albums from Final Straw onwards, the songs that film and television made famous, and the collaborations and side projects of frontman Gary Lightbody and his bandmates. It is pitched for anyone who knows the big singles, with a handful of harder questions for listeners who go back to the early records. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will learn the story behind the song even when you miss one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars became a hit after playing in the second-season finale of which American TV drama?
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy used the song in an emotional scene in May 2006, pushing it onto the US download and pop charts. It went on to reach number five on the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 02Which British singer's cover of Snow Patrol's ballad Run topped the UK singles chart in 2008?
Leona Lewis
Leona Lewis first sang it in Radio 1's Live Lounge in 2007, and her single became the UK's fastest-selling download at the time. It also topped the charts in Ireland, Austria and Portugal.
Q 03Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody made a cameo as a singing soldier in an episode of which fantasy TV series?
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones cast him as a Bolton soldier who strikes up The Bear and the Maiden Fair in the episode Walk of Punishment. It was the first time that song was heard in the series.
Q 04Snow Patrol's Signal Fire was rejected for Shrek the Third before playing over the credits of which superhero film?
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3 took the song after the Shrek film passed, and it was the only single from the soundtrack. In the UK it came out on web-shaped vinyl and peaked at number four.
Q 05Snow Patrol's self-described low point was a gig for eighteen people in High Wycombe, held at what kind of venue?
A strip club
A strip club hosted the show, and staff had to unscrew the dancers' poles to make room for the band. Gary Lightbody later joked about it on stage at a sold-out Wembley Arena.
Q 06Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars got its title from a remark about Gary Lightbody's hopeless crush, made by which relative?
His father
His father compared him to a dog running after a car: he would never catch the girl and would not know what to do if he did. Lightbody calls it the purest love song he has written.
Q 07In July 2006 Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars became the last song performed live on which long-running BBC music show?
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops ended its weekly run that month, and Snow Patrol were the last act to play live on it. Chasing Cars had only just come out in the UK and went on to peak at number six.
Q 08Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody co-wrote and sang on The Last Time, a 2013 single by which American superstar?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift wrote the power ballad with him for her album Red, and the pair sang it together on The X Factor in the UK in November 2013.
Q 09In both the UK and US videos for Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, Gary Lightbody sings in what position?
Lying on the ground
Lying on the ground is how he sings in both: out in the open in the rain for the UK cut, and in a diner, a subway car and a busy Los Angeles junction for the US one, where people step over him.
Q 10Snow Patrol are a Northern Irish band, but in which Scottish city did they form as university students in 1994?
Dundee
Dundee is where Gary Lightbody and Mark McClelland met as students and started a band called Shrug with drummer Michael Morrison. They played their first gigs at the university and in local pubs.
Q 11Snow Patrol pianist Johnny McDaid is one of the co-writers of which 2017 hit single by Ed Sheeran?
Shape of You
Shape of You went on to be named BMI Pop Song of the Year. McDaid has since co-written many more Sheeran hits, including Bad Habits and Shivers.
Q 12Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid announced his engagement in June 2014 to which American sitcom star?
Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox, who played Monica in Friends, began dating McDaid in late 2013. She said in 2019 that the engagement had been called off.
Q 13Snow Patrol spent a month in 2009 opening North American shows for which British band?
Coldplay
Coldplay took them along for a month, soon after Snow Patrol had finished an arena tour of their own that played to an estimated 200,000 people.
Q 21Snow Patrol teamed up in 2008 with which tech company on an interactive app for their album A Hundred Million Suns?
Apple
Apple worked with the band on a free iPhone and iPod Touch app for the album A Hundred Million Suns. It gave listeners behind-the-scenes photos and exclusive artwork.
Q 22Which singer-songwriter duets with Gary Lightbody on Snow Patrol's 2006 single Set the Fire to the Third Bar?
Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright agreed after Lightbody wrote the duet with her in mind; the band had been playing her music during the sessions. It was the last track recorded for Eyes Open.
Q 23Nathan Connolly was working in the store room of which music shop chain when Snow Patrol recruited him in 2002?
HMV
Q 14Snow Patrol opened European shows in 2005 on the Vertigo Tour, the world tour of which rock band?
U2
U2 gave them the opening slot in Europe during the two years Snow Patrol spent touring their breakthrough album, Final Straw. As a boy, Gary Lightbody dreamed of being a rock star like Bono.
Q 15Snow Patrol played a short set in London in summer 2005 as part of which worldwide benefit concert?
Live 8
Live 8 saw them play Chocolate and Run to the crowd in Hyde Park. The band were in the middle of two years on the road with their breakthrough album.
Q 16Although he writes Snow Patrol's songs, frontman Gary Lightbody has admitted that he has never learned to do what?
Read music
Read music is something he cannot do, and he says he guesses his way through chords. He started writing songs at 15, in a little room under the kitchen of the family home.
Q 17Snow Patrol's 2008 single Take Back the City was written about Gary Lightbody's love for which city?
Belfast
Belfast inspired the song, which Lightbody said was about why his country confused him growing up and why he loves it now. It was the lead single from A Hundred Million Suns.
Q 18Snow Patrol's Set the Fire to the Third Bar is named after which household object at Gary Lightbody's aunt's home?
An electric heater
An electric heater with three bars stood in his Aunt Jean's house, and on very cold days she let the children switch on all three. He wrote the song in about twenty minutes.
Q 19When Snow Patrol were dropped by their label in 2001, Gary Lightbody sold much of what to keep the band going?
His record collection
His record collection went to raise cash while the band had no deal and little money. He called the period miserable, but stayed confident that another label would sign them.
Q 20Snow Patrol's 2018 album Wildness missed the UK number one by fewer than 1,000 sales to which film soundtrack?
The Greatest Showman
The Greatest Showman soundtrack edged it out after a very close chart race, leaving Wildness at number two with first-week sales of 39,118.
HMV was his day job when a mutual friend introduced him to the band. He joked that his mother thought he was being kidnapped by rock stars.
Q 24Snow Patrol's Open Your Eyes won new listeners after playing over the season twelve finale of which American TV drama?
ER
ER closed its twelfth season with the song, and download sales rose again as more series used it, among them The Black Donnellys, Brothers and Sisters and The Office.
Q 25In their broke early years Snow Patrol got into nightclubs by pretending to be members of which Scottish band?
Belle & Sebastian
Belle & Sebastian were their far better-known labelmates at the time. Snow Patrol were so short of money that they also slept on fans' floors after concerts.
Q 26Gary Lightbody wrote Snow Patrol's breakthrough ballad Run soon after which mishap during a drinking bender in Glasgow?
A fall down stairs
A fall down stairs at the Glasgow School of Art bar left him with a split head, a closed eye and a few missing teeth. Drummer Jonny Quinn found him in the stairwell.
Q 27Snow Patrol's 2009 single Just Say Yes was first written for which American pop star, who turned it down?
Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani rejected the song, which Lightbody had written at his US label's request. Nicole Scherzinger then recorded it for a solo album that was shelved, so the band took it back.
Q 28For a 2005 Amnesty International campaign Snow Patrol covered Isolation, a song by which former member of the Beatles?
John Lennon
John Lennon's song was their contribution to the Make Some Noise campaign, and the cover later appeared on the 2007 tribute album Instant Karma.
Q 29Tom Simpson, a DJ who befriended Gary Lightbody at university, played which instrument in Snow Patrol until 2013?
Keyboards
Keyboards were his job from the debut album, where he added synthesizers and turntable effects. He toured with the band for years before becoming a full member in 2005.
Q 30Snow Patrol played a 2007 homecoming show to around 30,000 people in Ward Park in which County Down town?
Bangor
Bangor is the home town of Gary Lightbody and drummer Jonny Quinn, and the band headlined a mini-festival there on 1 September 2007.