"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.
Single file lines born by design
With a brass ring so deceiving
Chipped away to a status cult
Where indifference breeds control
And then with time comes "toe the line"
Cherish this pride made numb from feeling
The we have denial
"It's all in my head"
Will we do anything for bread?
If anything we've ever said
Means nothing now than it never did
Believe me
This isn't what we want
This isn't what we need
This is what we can afford
Where once there was a pat on the back
Is now just a crack of the whip
Where once there was a celebrated coming of age
Is just a uniform that doesn't fit
Witness this most common breed
Whittled down to property
And keep on singin'
"It's all in my head"
Will we do anything for bread?
If anything we've ever said
Means nothing now than it never did
Believe me
This isn't what we want
This isn't what we need
This is what we can afford
Where once there was a pat on the back
Is now just a crack of the whip
Where once there was a celebrated coming of age
Is just a uniform that doesn't fit
Witness this most common breed
Whittled down to property
And keep on singin'
"It's all in my head"
Celebrate this sorry state
With anecdotes of what you hate
And try to take comfort in the fact
That you're not alone
This isn't you
It's just what you do
Don't mistake the irony of calling it a "living"
If you feel like no one
If you feel like nothing
You've only been taking what they're giving
With a brass ring so deceiving
Chipped away to a status cult
Where indifference breeds control
And then with time comes "toe the line"
Cherish this pride made numb from feeling
The we have denial
"It's all in my head"
Will we do anything for bread?
If anything we've ever said
Means nothing now than it never did
Believe me
This isn't what we want
This isn't what we need
This is what we can afford
Where once there was a pat on the back
Is now just a crack of the whip
Where once there was a celebrated coming of age
Is just a uniform that doesn't fit
Witness this most common breed
Whittled down to property
And keep on singin'
"It's all in my head"
Will we do anything for bread?
If anything we've ever said
Means nothing now than it never did
Believe me
This isn't what we want
This isn't what we need
This is what we can afford
Where once there was a pat on the back
Is now just a crack of the whip
Where once there was a celebrated coming of age
Is just a uniform that doesn't fit
Witness this most common breed
Whittled down to property
And keep on singin'
"It's all in my head"
Celebrate this sorry state
With anecdotes of what you hate
And try to take comfort in the fact
That you're not alone
This isn't you
It's just what you do
Don't mistake the irony of calling it a "living"
If you feel like no one
If you feel like nothing
You've only been taking what they're giving
Lyrics submitted by skycamefalling00
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
This is to me the most bitter song ever written. The speaks of the proletariat population in a socialist manner, one step short of asking for a serious revolution. I am not trying to say they mean for any communist takeover, but that the majority of the working public is being constantly abused and short handed.
The song has some particularly personal lyrics, like "'it's all in my head'" in a sarcastic manner. The line "will do anything for bread" I think refers to the french revolution when the entire french population was so poor they could only afford bread, and Marie Antoinette had the most famous misquote ever "let them eat cake."