"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.
It's the mystery of Inequity
Said it's the misery of Inequity
Said it's the history of Inequity
When it all
All falls down
Telling you all
It all falls down
Children
Eat your bread
Little children
Eat your bread
'cause it all
All falls down
Telling you all
It all falls down
Yo!
Ya'll can't handle the truth in a courtroom of lies
Perjures the jurors
Witness despised
Crooked lawyers
False Indictments publicized
Its entertainmentthe arraignments
The subpoenas
High profile gladiators in bloodthirsty arenas
Enter the Dragon
Black-robe crooked-balance
Souls bought and sold and paroled for thirty talents
Court reporter catch the surface on the paper
File it in the system not acknowledged by the Maker
Swearing by the bible blatantly blasphemous
Publicly perpetrating that "In God We Trust"
Cross-examined by a master manipulator
The faster intimidator
Receiving the judge's favor
Deceiving sabers doing injury to they neighbors
For status, gratis, apparatus and legal waivers
See the bailiff
Representing security
Holding the word of God soliciting perjury
The prosecution
Political prostitution
The more money you pay.. the further away solution
Legal actors
Babylon's benefactors
Masquerading as the agency for the clients
Hypocritical giants
Morally non-compliant
Orally armed to do bodily harm
Polluted, recruited and suited judicial charm
And the defense isn't making any sense
Faking the confidence of escaping the consequence
That a defendant is depending on the system
Totally void of judgment purposely made to twist em'
Emotional victim blackmailed by the henchmen
Framed by intentions
Inventions whereby they lynch men
Enter the false witness slandering the accused
Planting the seed openly showing he's being used
To discredit, edit, headed for the alleged
Smearing the individual fearing the unsuspected
Expert witness (the paid authority)
Made a priority to deceive the majority
Of disinterested peers
Dodging duty for years
Hating the process
waiting to be returning to their careers
Do we expect the system made for the elect
To possibly judge correct?
Properly serve and protect?
Materially corrupt
Spiritually amuck
Oblivious to the cause
Prosperously bankrupt
Blind leading the blind
Guilty never defined
Filthy as swine
A generation purin it's own mind
Legal extortion
Blown out of proportion
In vein deceit
The truth is obsolete
Only two positions:
Victimizer or Victim
Both end up in destruction trusting this crooked system
Mafia with diplomas keeping us in a coma trying to own a piece
of the "American Corona"
The Revolving Door
Insanity every floor
Skyscraping, paper chasing
What are we working for?
Empty traditions
Reaching social positions
Teaching ambition to support the family superstition?
When the Son of Podition is Commander in Chief
The standard is Thief
Brethren can we candidly speak?
Woe to the men
Trusted in the chariots dem'
Leaning on horses
They run their intellectual sources
Counterfeit wisdom creating the illusion of freedom
Confusion consumes them
Every word they speak it turns them out really white
Internally they absent of light
trapped in the night and bonded to the Cain of the night
Under the curse
Evil men waxing more worse
Faxing the first
Angelic being cast to the earth
It's time for rebirth
Burnin' up the branch and the root
The empty pursuits of every tree bearing the wrong fruit
Turning me ill
Let him who stole, no longer steal
Oh it's real
Surrender for Jehovah is real
How long will you sleep
Troubled by the thoughts that YOU keep
The idols YOU heap
Causing the destruction you reap
Judgment has come
Find it and return to the One
Abandon the flesh
Self-interest: Broadway to death
Pride and the Greed
Hide and subdividing the seed
The knowledge of Good and Evil is what caused us to lie
Caused us to die
Let your emotions be crucified
Renounce all your thoughts
Repent and let your mind be re-taught
You'll find what you soughtwas based on the deception you bought
A perception of naught
Where the majority remains caught
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
It's the mystery of Inequity
Say it's the history of Inequity
Say it's the misery of Inequity
When it all
All falls down
I'm telling you all
It all falls down
Said it's the misery of Inequity
Said it's the history of Inequity
When it all
All falls down
Telling you all
It all falls down
Children
Eat your bread
Little children
Eat your bread
'cause it all
All falls down
Telling you all
It all falls down
Yo!
Ya'll can't handle the truth in a courtroom of lies
Perjures the jurors
Witness despised
Crooked lawyers
False Indictments publicized
Its entertainmentthe arraignments
The subpoenas
High profile gladiators in bloodthirsty arenas
Enter the Dragon
Black-robe crooked-balance
Souls bought and sold and paroled for thirty talents
Court reporter catch the surface on the paper
File it in the system not acknowledged by the Maker
Swearing by the bible blatantly blasphemous
Publicly perpetrating that "In God We Trust"
Cross-examined by a master manipulator
The faster intimidator
Receiving the judge's favor
Deceiving sabers doing injury to they neighbors
For status, gratis, apparatus and legal waivers
See the bailiff
Representing security
Holding the word of God soliciting perjury
The prosecution
Political prostitution
The more money you pay.. the further away solution
Legal actors
Babylon's benefactors
Masquerading as the agency for the clients
Hypocritical giants
Morally non-compliant
Orally armed to do bodily harm
Polluted, recruited and suited judicial charm
And the defense isn't making any sense
Faking the confidence of escaping the consequence
That a defendant is depending on the system
Totally void of judgment purposely made to twist em'
Emotional victim blackmailed by the henchmen
Framed by intentions
Inventions whereby they lynch men
Enter the false witness slandering the accused
Planting the seed openly showing he's being used
To discredit, edit, headed for the alleged
Smearing the individual fearing the unsuspected
Expert witness (the paid authority)
Made a priority to deceive the majority
Of disinterested peers
Dodging duty for years
Hating the process
waiting to be returning to their careers
Do we expect the system made for the elect
To possibly judge correct?
Properly serve and protect?
Materially corrupt
Spiritually amuck
Oblivious to the cause
Prosperously bankrupt
Blind leading the blind
Guilty never defined
Filthy as swine
A generation purin it's own mind
Legal extortion
Blown out of proportion
In vein deceit
The truth is obsolete
Only two positions:
Victimizer or Victim
Both end up in destruction trusting this crooked system
Mafia with diplomas keeping us in a coma trying to own a piece
of the "American Corona"
The Revolving Door
Insanity every floor
Skyscraping, paper chasing
What are we working for?
Empty traditions
Reaching social positions
Teaching ambition to support the family superstition?
When the Son of Podition is Commander in Chief
The standard is Thief
Brethren can we candidly speak?
Woe to the men
Trusted in the chariots dem'
Leaning on horses
They run their intellectual sources
Counterfeit wisdom creating the illusion of freedom
Confusion consumes them
Every word they speak it turns them out really white
Internally they absent of light
trapped in the night and bonded to the Cain of the night
Under the curse
Evil men waxing more worse
Faxing the first
Angelic being cast to the earth
It's time for rebirth
Burnin' up the branch and the root
The empty pursuits of every tree bearing the wrong fruit
Turning me ill
Let him who stole, no longer steal
Oh it's real
Surrender for Jehovah is real
How long will you sleep
Troubled by the thoughts that YOU keep
The idols YOU heap
Causing the destruction you reap
Judgment has come
Find it and return to the One
Abandon the flesh
Self-interest: Broadway to death
Pride and the Greed
Hide and subdividing the seed
The knowledge of Good and Evil is what caused us to lie
Caused us to die
Let your emotions be crucified
Renounce all your thoughts
Repent and let your mind be re-taught
You'll find what you soughtwas based on the deception you bought
A perception of naught
Where the majority remains caught
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
Loving a lie
Not realizing in Adam, all die
It's the mystery of Inequity
Say it's the history of Inequity
Say it's the misery of Inequity
When it all
All falls down
I'm telling you all
It all falls down
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I know she says that when she mentions Adam she's talking about all of humanity. But what exactly does that mean? Is this a biblical reference? And what exactly does this mean "Oh ISREAL (not it's real) Surrender for Jehovah is real" I love Lauryn and her music is amazing but a lot of it is biblical and I'm not a religious person so some of this goes over my head. Can anyone elaborate?