The Lightning Strike

"The Lightning Strike" is a song from alternative rock band Snow Patrol's fifth album A Hundred Million Suns, and appears as the last track on the album. The lyrics to the song were written by lead singer Gary Lightbody and the music was composed by Snow Patrol. The song is composed of three smaller songs and, at sixteen minutes and eighteen seconds, is the longest the band has released yet. The song has an elaborate live performance where a specially made animation is played simultaneously as the band performs the song. Most of the video features origami, which is the main artwork for the album and its singles. The song received a mixed reaction when the album was released, and though the band were praised for playing it live, the general feeling was that it wasn't a right choice, with one critic calling it "self-indulgent" but forgivable. Conception and composition In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, lyricist Gary Lightbody revealed the song was conceived after he was caught in a heavy storm one night in Glasgow: "I was pretty terrified – 150-mile-an-hour winds, trees falling down. But we went outside the house, and it was also just thrilling. There was this howling wind, but it felt like silence, as if our senses were being too bombarded to cope with what was going on. So the record was born out of that feeling, of two people having a protective shell around each other. I'm not saying there's not darkness in there still, but it's happening from outward factors more than inward. Maybe things are terrifying, but they're beautiful, too. The world is extremely surprising".