“Set the Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol

"Set the Fire to the Third Bar" was the last thing Snow Patrol recorded for Eyes Open, their fourth album, and it went out as a single on 13 November 2006 with Martha Wainwright singing alongside them. Gary Lightbody wrote it with her in mind, in twenty minutes flat, his fastest ever; the music is credited to him, Nathan Connolly, Jonny Quinn, Tom Simpson and Paul Wilson.

The title is an old electric heater. Writing in the freezing cold in fingerless gloves, Lightbody remembered an aunt whose heater had three bars, all of them switched on only when the kids behaved and the weather was bitter, and he called it "a beacon of warmth within a song about distance": two people a long way apart, aching to be together again. Jacknife Lee produced and plays keyboards, and Cenzo Townshend mixed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.