"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.
At intersections where many mirrored faces meet in a city on a constant search for change at angles working angles from every angle this still looks the same when magic slips from crawling nights then tracing chains will have me chasing trains but at least i know a hundred hollow buildings where i can hide tonight so i'll settle in and take solace in hearts too big for the town they're living in but now this space is freezing and time is beginning to crawl this place is getting hard for breathing and when you're so hard on the eyes i know i've been here too long crowding these doorways and climbing these walls and trying to remember why these streets called me home 'cause every minute is freezing under first street moving freely in a concrete island where you can't see me but every minute's still freezing and if you stare hard enough at your feet then you can pretend that you don't see me but i've come here tonight to run down demons before i say goodbye to run through feelings before i say goodbye.
Lyrics submitted by PLANES
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Fast Car
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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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