"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.
you better run
as fast as you can
'cause this passenger's not a happy man
start running just as fast as you can
you say, you need a friend
hey, well so do i
but this passenger's just passing by
passenger is just passing
bye.
at your age and stage
you should understand
but you don't care. you got a master plan
fuck, fuck, fuck 'em all and take what you can
a freezing cold stare
and a flick in the eye
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
to walk on water you'd sink in the ice
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside
don't it feel good just to be alive still holding everything inside
you don't know what you want
so you take what you can
still don't make you a happy man
keep running just as fast as you can
a freezing cold stare
and a flick in the eye
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
to walk on water you'd sink in the ice x2
for all things gained there's a sacrifice
to walk on water you gotta sink in the ice
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside
and don't it feel good just to be alive,
don't it feel good just to be alive
you're still holding everything inside
and you don't know what you want, do ya?
know what you want?
what you want?
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside x2
[youre still holding]
everything inside
as fast as you can
'cause this passenger's not a happy man
start running just as fast as you can
you say, you need a friend
hey, well so do i
but this passenger's just passing by
passenger is just passing
bye.
at your age and stage
you should understand
but you don't care. you got a master plan
fuck, fuck, fuck 'em all and take what you can
a freezing cold stare
and a flick in the eye
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
to walk on water you'd sink in the ice
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside
don't it feel good just to be alive still holding everything inside
you don't know what you want
so you take what you can
still don't make you a happy man
keep running just as fast as you can
a freezing cold stare
and a flick in the eye
passengers just passing by
passengers just passing by
to walk on water you'd sink in the ice x2
for all things gained there's a sacrifice
to walk on water you gotta sink in the ice
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside
and don't it feel good just to be alive,
don't it feel good just to be alive
you're still holding everything inside
and you don't know what you want, do ya?
know what you want?
what you want?
you're holding everything inside, you're holding everything inside x2
[youre still holding]
everything inside
Lyrics submitted by _freak_
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
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 song fucking rocks! i love the lyrics too. the video clip can get really annoying tho coz of the amps in the back all spaz. but its a cool song. btw people add the lyrics to their new albulm under pacifier. i love semi-normal!
i was so addicted to this song the first time i heard it. Shihad/pacifier are just amazing live they have so much energy on stage. it seems to be about a person who's life is passing by his eyes, and this person just keeps trying hard to do amazing and risky things but always ends up i trouble. he holds all his emotions inside, but doesnt care. "it makes him feel alive" to live this way.
i just got home from seeing Shihad live (and free too, lucky me), they played this second or third and completely flattened the place with it, great song live
the whole 'to walk on water you'd sink in the ice' kinda has the same ring to me as 'dont let your life get in the way of living'. its a kind of, why do you need to complicate your situation to get something that you already have
I think its a metaphor for the prediciment humanity is in. We're all in the same train heading for the same destination-destruction if we keep treating each other like means to an end-"fuck, fuck, fuck em all and take what you can. And he's addressing a businessperson, emblematic of that attitude, saying "to walk on water, you've got to sink in the ice" and he looks away apathetic. He thinks he's invincible. To this guy all these people on the train, are just objects, not people-just "passengers passing by"
...and shihad's saying they're gonna wreck havoc to those sort of people. Hmmmm
I wonder if its a reference to the book "you can't be neutral on a running train". Well, it reminds me of it anyways