Another notable role followed in the 2009 melodrama Will It Snow for Christmas?, as a penniless man whose family went bankrupt during the IMF crisis, and thus feels conflicted about falling for an heiress.
Song said he cried when he first read Lee Kyung-hee's script, describing it as "so entertaining and sad and it had a lot of great lines," that he begged his manager to get him cast in the drama.
[3] This was followed by the popular Reply 1997, a nostalgic cable drama in which Song played a warm-hearted computer genius-turned-politician loosely based on Ahn Cheol-soo, and was part of the show's central love triangle.
Then in The Fugitive of Joseon (2013), Song portrayed an uigeumbu, an intelligent and tenacious investigator hunting down the protagonist until he becomes convinced of the latter's innocence and they join forces.
He then made guest appearances on The Suspicious Housekeeper (as a stalker) and Beyond the Clouds (as the heroine's fiancé whose death early in the drama serves as a catalyst).