"Chasing Pavements" is a song by British singer Adele, from her debut album 19. It was the second single from the album, after "Hometown Glory". It was released digitally in Ireland on 13 January 2008 and entered the Irish singles chart at number 26 through download sales alone. Having received a physical release, the single then leaped 19 places to number seven, where it peaked. On 20 January, the single entered at number two in the UK singles chart on downloads alone. "Chasing Pavements" was the 27th best selling single of 2008 in the UK, with over 280,000 sales. It was Adele's first Billboard Hot 100 entry, and has sold over 1,200,000 digital copies as of October 2011. The B-side to the single is an acoustic cover of the Sam Cooke song "That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On". "Chasing Pavements" won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

The accompanying music video was directed by Mathew Cullen of production company Motion Theory. It was uploaded to Adele's official YouTube account on October 24, 2009.

The song was inspired by an incident Adele had with a former boyfriend of six months. After learning he had cheated on her, she went to the bar he was at and punched him in the face. After being thrown out, Adele walked down the street alone and thought to herself, "What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement." She sang and recorded it on her mobile phone and arranged the chords when she got home. "Chasing Pavements" is written in the key of C minor.

"Chasing Pavements" was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 2009 Grammy Awards. The track received nominations in the categories of Record of The Year, Song of the Year and for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. It won the award for the Best Female Vocal Performance but lost out 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. She performed "Chasing Pavements" with Sugarland.

...
Wikipedia