"Headlights on the Parade" is a song by Scottish band The Blue Nile, released in 1990 as the second single from their second studio album Hats (1989).

[2] In a 1990 interview with Melody Maker, Paul Buchanan said of the song's message, "It's about being alive and therefore lots of things, happy and sad, happen to you simultaneously, so what do you hold on to, really?

[6] Simon Reynolds of Melody Maker picked it as one of the magazine's "singles of the week" and praised it as "another panoramic, cinematic beauty off Hats."

He commented, "It's certainly not so splendidly grey, and you can't be sure about the snare crack and the sequencer coming so far up front, [but] it's probably the mark of a good song that it can endure the butcher slab experience.

"[10] Philip Booth of The Tampa Tribune stated, "'Headlights on the Parade' offers bass gurgles and soft acoustic-piano swashes.