"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.
Don't you fret, M'sieur Marius
I don't feel any pain
A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now
You're here, that's all I need to know
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain will make the flowers grow
But you will live, 'Ponine dear God above
If I could heal your wounds with words of love
Just hold me now, and let it be
Shelter me, comfort me
You would live a hundred years
If I could show you how
I won't desert you now
The rain can't hurt me now
This rain will wash away what's past
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
I'll sleep in your embrace at last
The rain that brings you here
Is Heaven-blessed!
The skies begin to clear And I'm at rest
A breath away from where you are
I've come home from so far
So don't you fret, M'sieur Marius
I don't feel any pain
A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now
I'm here
That's all I need to know
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain (and rain)
Will make the flowers (will make the flowers grow)
I don't feel any pain
A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now
You're here, that's all I need to know
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain will make the flowers grow
But you will live, 'Ponine dear God above
If I could heal your wounds with words of love
Just hold me now, and let it be
Shelter me, comfort me
You would live a hundred years
If I could show you how
I won't desert you now
The rain can't hurt me now
This rain will wash away what's past
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
I'll sleep in your embrace at last
The rain that brings you here
Is Heaven-blessed!
The skies begin to clear And I'm at rest
A breath away from where you are
I've come home from so far
So don't you fret, M'sieur Marius
I don't feel any pain
A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now
I'm here
That's all I need to know
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain (and rain)
Will make the flowers (will make the flowers grow)
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Lord Huron
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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"
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
I have read this novel several times and there is some confusion on this thread.
Marius doesn't hate Eponine. He doesn't love Eponine. He has no opinion. She's just another living being in the world to him. Marius is going through a sort of transformation after his problems with his grandfather. He is in limbo, unsure what to do next, until one day he sees Cosette. From that point onward he is obsessed with Cosette. So while Eponine is in his life (she lives next door to him) Marius looks through her.
Eponine loves Marius. But she is aware that he would never ever have any interest in someone like her. She is poor, and unattractive due to being malnourished. So Eponine's goal in life is to bring Cosette and Marius together. Marius asks Eponine to help him find Cosette and Eponine arranges everything, and goes so far as to prevent her father's gang from attacking Val Jean and Cosette's house. She does this because she wants to make Marius happy. Because she loves him.
That's what this song is about. Eponine is saying to Marius "I don't care if I'm dying, if I can lay my head on your lap and take comfort from you I will be happier than I've ever been".
And for the person who said Eponine always lived a sad life, that's untrue. Eponine was a very happy child and she had a "good life" until the Thenardier's lost their inn when she was around 10 years old.
Here's the link to the chapter in the novel when Eponine dies.
classicreader.com/book/268/293/
"The bullet traversed my hand, but it came out through my back. It is useless to remove me from this spot. I will tell you how you can care for me better than any surgeon. Sit down near me on this stone."
He obeyed; she laid her head on Marius' knees, and, without looking at him, she said:--
"Oh! How good this is! How comfortable this is! There; I no longer suffer."
She remained silent for a moment, then she turned her face with an effort, and looked at Marius.
"Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered that garden; it was stupid, because it was I who showed you that house; and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--"
She paused, and overstepping the sombre transitions that undoubtedly existed in her mind, she resumed with a heartrending smile:--
"You thought me ugly, didn't you?"....