"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.
That's right
Life is funny ain't it (yeah)
Sometimes you can end up with
Somebody you really don't wanna be with
And others left to figure it out
Check it
She was more than a women, a goddess for all it seems
All I ever needed was her right here loving me
For a while we were cool and the groovin' love was on
But I still remember how it felt when our love was gone
In a tattered picture book
Was a photograph she took years ago
(Secret memories in her mind)
Secret memories in her mind
How could love be so unkind?
Heartbreak time (my heart is breaking)
Just faded pictures in a broken glass (broken glass)
Like a mirror revealing (I see, I see you)
What the woman is feeling
Was it someone from a distant past? (Way back long ago)
'Cause it's breaking my heart
To watch her stare into the glass (Joe help me out!)
As she turned through the pages the tears rolled down her face
I could see her reminiscing, why her life had to be this way
Then she stopped and she came to a page where her diary ends
To smell the scent of an old rose, from her lover I suppose
In a tattered picture book (tattered picture book)
Was a photograph she took (she took, yeah) years ago
(Secret memories in her mind)
Secret memories in her mind (oh oh)
How could love be so unkind? (Unkind)
Heartbreak time
Faded pictures in a broken glass (oh baby)
Like a mirror revealing (like a mirror revealing)
What the woman is feeling
(Was it someone from a distant past?)
Was it someone from a distant past? (Oh oh)
'Cause it's breaking my heart (it's breaking my heart)
To watch her stare into the glass (stare into the glass)
Just keep spinning
As she stares into the glass, I'll be waiting
'Cause she's lost inside the past
Let's just keep spinning
Spin, spin, spin, spin
As she stares into the glass, I'll be waiting
'Cause she's lost inside the past (lost inside the past)
Faded pictures in a broken glass (in a broken glass)
Like a mirror revealing (I feel it)
What the woman is feeling (yeah and I know it too)
Was it someone from a distant past? (Way back long ago)
'Cause it's breaking my heart
You're breaking my, you're breaking my
You're breaking my heart girl
Faded pictures in a broken glass
Oh, hmm
Life is funny ain't it (yeah)
Sometimes you can end up with
Somebody you really don't wanna be with
And others left to figure it out
Check it
She was more than a women, a goddess for all it seems
All I ever needed was her right here loving me
For a while we were cool and the groovin' love was on
But I still remember how it felt when our love was gone
In a tattered picture book
Was a photograph she took years ago
(Secret memories in her mind)
Secret memories in her mind
How could love be so unkind?
Heartbreak time (my heart is breaking)
Just faded pictures in a broken glass (broken glass)
Like a mirror revealing (I see, I see you)
What the woman is feeling
Was it someone from a distant past? (Way back long ago)
'Cause it's breaking my heart
To watch her stare into the glass (Joe help me out!)
As she turned through the pages the tears rolled down her face
I could see her reminiscing, why her life had to be this way
Then she stopped and she came to a page where her diary ends
To smell the scent of an old rose, from her lover I suppose
In a tattered picture book (tattered picture book)
Was a photograph she took (she took, yeah) years ago
(Secret memories in her mind)
Secret memories in her mind (oh oh)
How could love be so unkind? (Unkind)
Heartbreak time
Faded pictures in a broken glass (oh baby)
Like a mirror revealing (like a mirror revealing)
What the woman is feeling
(Was it someone from a distant past?)
Was it someone from a distant past? (Oh oh)
'Cause it's breaking my heart (it's breaking my heart)
To watch her stare into the glass (stare into the glass)
Just keep spinning
As she stares into the glass, I'll be waiting
'Cause she's lost inside the past
Let's just keep spinning
Spin, spin, spin, spin
As she stares into the glass, I'll be waiting
'Cause she's lost inside the past (lost inside the past)
Faded pictures in a broken glass (in a broken glass)
Like a mirror revealing (I feel it)
What the woman is feeling (yeah and I know it too)
Was it someone from a distant past? (Way back long ago)
'Cause it's breaking my heart
You're breaking my, you're breaking my
You're breaking my heart girl
Faded pictures in a broken glass
Oh, hmm
Lyrics submitted by KungFuChica
Faded Pictures [Soul Central Version] Lyrics as written by Joshua Thompson Joe L. Thomas
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.