"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.
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It's funny how everyone concedes that Liz's lyrics are often not even able to be transcribed, and yet we all have this intense need to try and put her sounds into words we can string together logically, to come up with lyrics that "make sense" to us. I'm guilty of this myself, even though I love the Twins more than life itself and I know that Liz's lyrics are meant to be felt rather than studied.