"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.
Scene I:
A dull and dreary day.
What else can you say?
"Eustice, you’re always such a bore."
Why, thank you, Isadore."
"They say a door is nothing on its own;
it must lead somewhere.
I’d like to go somewhere.
We could go for a look-about in the attics and the closed rooms
find diaries and letters of long-dead distant lovers.
It’d be just like when we were children sneaking all around
we wouldn’t make a sound;
they’d beat us black and blue if we were found,
but they can’t touch us now!
"Izzy, don’t mean to be a bore
but really Isadore.
You know these grey days make me blue.
I don’t know what to do.
No...there’s nothing I want to do."
Scene II
The dull and dreary day becomes a dark and stormy night.
"Eustice, we could go outside and bottle fireflies.
Fairy lamps burn bright
in the face of stormy night
and the old black umbrella
could keep us from all harm.
We could go to the lichyard and see what there’s to see.
Maybe a cabal meets underneath the banyan trees.
It’d be just like when we were children sneaking all around
we wouldn’t make a sound;
we thought they’d reach out from their graves and drag us down,
but they don’t scare us now!"
"Izzy, don’t mean to be a drag
but I’ll do no such thing;
I’m staying in this chair.
I’d probably break my neck
falling in an open grave
or catch some horrid, fatal ache."
"Oh Eustice, come with me; come outside.
It’ll be all right."
A dull and dreary day.
What else can you say?
"Eustice, you’re always such a bore."
Why, thank you, Isadore."
"They say a door is nothing on its own;
it must lead somewhere.
I’d like to go somewhere.
We could go for a look-about in the attics and the closed rooms
find diaries and letters of long-dead distant lovers.
It’d be just like when we were children sneaking all around
we wouldn’t make a sound;
they’d beat us black and blue if we were found,
but they can’t touch us now!
"Izzy, don’t mean to be a bore
but really Isadore.
You know these grey days make me blue.
I don’t know what to do.
No...there’s nothing I want to do."
Scene II
The dull and dreary day becomes a dark and stormy night.
"Eustice, we could go outside and bottle fireflies.
Fairy lamps burn bright
in the face of stormy night
and the old black umbrella
could keep us from all harm.
We could go to the lichyard and see what there’s to see.
Maybe a cabal meets underneath the banyan trees.
It’d be just like when we were children sneaking all around
we wouldn’t make a sound;
we thought they’d reach out from their graves and drag us down,
but they don’t scare us now!"
"Izzy, don’t mean to be a drag
but I’ll do no such thing;
I’m staying in this chair.
I’d probably break my neck
falling in an open grave
or catch some horrid, fatal ache."
"Oh Eustice, come with me; come outside.
It’ll be all right."
Lyrics submitted by StupidToWish
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