"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
Verse One:
I saw the rod-eye cross and murder circle above my turret
Slither spiraling banister down a hide
My ruby glass glazed specs staple to trade the market thieves
Where vendors cop the stolen citrus out they pyramids
Merry without a slapstick mavericks plugged directly to 3rd rail surges
Piss on electric mayhem through city commuter circuits
Oooh child, raises oddity, son of a circus side show freak
Pertinent to the slide show, the wino's leak but I won't speak
Infected projection hung thicken the air
Punching is burning plastics upon whiffing the nasal cringes
Pucker another 60-second lapse while 60 stars collapse the suckers
And I'm reborn every time the wine metamorphs back to water, my god
Sweet Christ crucify me with rail road spikes
Use my skull to bash them all in, gather sit and grin, weave
All fair the most serene communication's pageant
Where sitting with a stranger and living awards the badges
I spell Marry with my name stitched on my heritage
Incinerate arrogant simpletons to feed my cherished wind
Buried in leagues a please, thank you, pardon, excuse me
Your welcome, may I? ohh, I'd like to nod but no you may not
Let's take a deep breath, naw let's take a breath
Naw let's take, naw let's aaah shit, well I guess that about says it
Maybe I'll craft the sycamore canoe and paddle upstream
Where the luck seems to reflect precious lovely interventions
Chorus:
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
Verse Two:
You ever died a thousand deaths? I have
And in the morrow stood a thousand steps from where my nourish laughed
And made a boat at, nomad, I roam in a social coma
Jones and behome alone days sink how my poems I
Dig in the dirt I bring up the earth like pulley systems
Thereby painting the perfect metaphor for hung juries
Strung along a song of spawning thorns of fury
Numb the anti-add-alarm before he recognized this worries me
Carpet by my spearheading fink-eye beretta
Walk my line, now what? Now strut that little poison combine
Y'all call natural, in honesty promise me twenty thousand salami links
And dive and finding my thriving ivy leaves climbing up the pit fall
Lack of most lords aboard, heroes unsung heroes unbrung rewards
Yo if I flutter in a trouble clutch then I dance fancy forward
Like park children double dutching ropes in burning city summers
My wing span can and will employ full expansion
Unfolding while lamping at home with my hands spanning for gold
Told them the roof was on fire, when that structure burned to ashes
All y'all saw was Aesop Rock holding an empty book of matches
Maybe I'll sit until the spilling motors clear
Maybe I'll sit and stroke my billie goat beard
And rethink the time angels appear, maybe I won't
Bundled in my humble little plummet
Numb enough to die those thousand deaths under the sun it makes me sick
Chorus:
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I saw the rod-eye cross and murder circle above my turret
Slither spiraling banister down a hide
My ruby glass glazed specs staple to trade the market thieves
Where vendors cop the stolen citrus out they pyramids
Merry without a slapstick mavericks plugged directly to 3rd rail surges
Piss on electric mayhem through city commuter circuits
Oooh child, raises oddity, son of a circus side show freak
Pertinent to the slide show, the wino's leak but I won't speak
Infected projection hung thicken the air
Punching is burning plastics upon whiffing the nasal cringes
Pucker another 60-second lapse while 60 stars collapse the suckers
And I'm reborn every time the wine metamorphs back to water, my god
Sweet Christ crucify me with rail road spikes
Use my skull to bash them all in, gather sit and grin, weave
All fair the most serene communication's pageant
Where sitting with a stranger and living awards the badges
I spell Marry with my name stitched on my heritage
Incinerate arrogant simpletons to feed my cherished wind
Buried in leagues a please, thank you, pardon, excuse me
Your welcome, may I? ohh, I'd like to nod but no you may not
Let's take a deep breath, naw let's take a breath
Naw let's take, naw let's aaah shit, well I guess that about says it
Maybe I'll craft the sycamore canoe and paddle upstream
Where the luck seems to reflect precious lovely interventions
Chorus:
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
Verse Two:
You ever died a thousand deaths? I have
And in the morrow stood a thousand steps from where my nourish laughed
And made a boat at, nomad, I roam in a social coma
Jones and behome alone days sink how my poems I
Dig in the dirt I bring up the earth like pulley systems
Thereby painting the perfect metaphor for hung juries
Strung along a song of spawning thorns of fury
Numb the anti-add-alarm before he recognized this worries me
Carpet by my spearheading fink-eye beretta
Walk my line, now what? Now strut that little poison combine
Y'all call natural, in honesty promise me twenty thousand salami links
And dive and finding my thriving ivy leaves climbing up the pit fall
Lack of most lords aboard, heroes unsung heroes unbrung rewards
Yo if I flutter in a trouble clutch then I dance fancy forward
Like park children double dutching ropes in burning city summers
My wing span can and will employ full expansion
Unfolding while lamping at home with my hands spanning for gold
Told them the roof was on fire, when that structure burned to ashes
All y'all saw was Aesop Rock holding an empty book of matches
Maybe I'll sit until the spilling motors clear
Maybe I'll sit and stroke my billie goat beard
And rethink the time angels appear, maybe I won't
Bundled in my humble little plummet
Numb enough to die those thousand deaths under the sun it makes me sick
Chorus:
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours
For kicking your fantasies overboard
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for them and theirs
For breaking down their ropes, ladders and stairs
I mean I'm only one servant, ayo one hell of a diversion
And if the masses have agreed to split the sea then let it bleed
Lyrics submitted by Ice
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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I dont see how "and I apologize for you and yours For kicking your fantasies overboard" relates to no afterlife...
"I have died a thousand deaths, and I apologize for you and yours For kicking your fantasies overboard I mean I'm only one servant, MAKING one hell of a diversion And if the masses have agreed THEN split the sea AND let it bleed"
Life's ups and downs. Lifes setbacks. you feel alive for a week, then life comes around and tears you down, metephorically killing you the next week. Next week your new and fresh. Just like how a tree dies every winter, then comes back by spring, ready for some more growth. So we each die 1,000+ deaths in our lifetime, we can take the deaths and rebirths as natures design to help us grow, or we can kick our fantasies overboard...Aesop is a servant to mother nature, making one hell of a diversion from societys views on life and its meaning, so if the masses agree to this philosophy of how life works (death and birth, sad to happy, blind to clarity), that pain is part of the growth process, then split the sea and let it bleed!