"Chasing Pavements" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter Adele for her debut studio album, 19 (2008).

[3] "Chasing Pavements" received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its lyrics, production and Adele's vocal performance, with many citing it amongst the singer's best songs.

It peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart and received 2x Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

[3] In an interview with ELLE she detailed the event and that created the song: During an argument with her boyfriend at a club she slapped him and then ran away, only to look back and find that no one was chasing her.

[3] The song itself was written in one day with the help of Francis "Eg" White, a British musician, singer, and songwriter, and was immediately sent off to Adele's record company.

Chuck Arnold of Billboard listed the song second in a ranking of her discography, comparing Adele's songwriting ability to Carole King and noting that its sophistication was way beyond her years.

[10] In a readers' poll by Rolling Stone where it placed at number four, Brittany Spanos commented that it was not as "viscerally emotional" as Adele's later work on her second studio album, 21, but a "fantastic" early glimpse of her abilities.

[11] Similarly, The Guardian's Alexis Petridis ranked "Chasing Pavements" at number five, and praised its sophistication and its chorus's emphasis on Adele's vocals.

[12] Jazz Monroe of NME listed the song as Adele's eighth best, and said that it was great despite its big chorus, and described its hook as grandiose.

[16] It won the Grammy award for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance but lost to Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" in the Song of the Year category and to Robert Plant's and Alison Krauss' collaboration, "Please Read the Letter", in the Record of the Year category.

[40][41] The song's music video focuses on a car crash (a white Peugeot 505 saloon) occurring in Hyde Park, London.

[43] It features two views: one of the real-world in which the occupants of the car are lying motionless on the pavement following the accident, and the other (during the choruses) in which the camera shows them from above.

Then, she stands beside a tree continuing to sing until it ends with the victims shown on stretchers, being wheeled away in different directions by ambulance crews tending to them.

The couple appear to reenact their relationship, starting from their first meeting when the woman dropped her scarf and the man handed it back to her.

She writes something on a piece of paper and when the man reads it, he is angered, but he forgives her and they begin rekindling the passion they once had before the crash.

The man and the woman dance gracefully and intimately, but in spite of all the joy, they are still just two bodies lying motionless on the pavement, and are then wheeled away by ambulance crews in different directions.