"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.
I just want to talk to you
I won't uh, do you no harm
I just want to know about your different lives
On this is here people farm
I heard some of you got your families
Living in cages tall and cold
And some just stay there and dust away
Past the age of old.
Is this true ?
Please let me talk to you.
I just wanna know about
The rooms behind your minds
Uh do I see a vacuum there
Or am I going blind ?
Or is it just uh, remains of vibrations
And echoes long ago ?
Uh things like "Love the world" and uh
Uh "Let your fancy flow"
Is this true ?
Please let me talk to you
Let me talk to you.
I have lived here before
The days of ice
And of course this is why
I'm so concerned
And I come back to find
The stars misplaced
And the smell of a world
That is burned
A smell of a world
That is burned.
Yeah well, maybe, hmm...
Maybe it's just a... change of climate
Hmm, hmm...
Well I can dig it
I can dig it baby
I just want to see.
So where do I purchase my ticket ?
I'd just like to have a ringside seat
I want to know about the new Mother Earth
I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything
Yeah...
Aww. shucks
! If my daddy could see me now
Everything, everything, everything, oh everything.
I won't uh, do you no harm
I just want to know about your different lives
On this is here people farm
I heard some of you got your families
Living in cages tall and cold
And some just stay there and dust away
Past the age of old.
Is this true ?
Please let me talk to you.
I just wanna know about
The rooms behind your minds
Uh do I see a vacuum there
Or am I going blind ?
Or is it just uh, remains of vibrations
And echoes long ago ?
Uh things like "Love the world" and uh
Uh "Let your fancy flow"
Is this true ?
Please let me talk to you
Let me talk to you.
I have lived here before
The days of ice
And of course this is why
I'm so concerned
And I come back to find
The stars misplaced
And the smell of a world
That is burned
A smell of a world
That is burned.
Yeah well, maybe, hmm...
Maybe it's just a... change of climate
Hmm, hmm...
Well I can dig it
I can dig it baby
I just want to see.
So where do I purchase my ticket ?
I'd just like to have a ringside seat
I want to know about the new Mother Earth
I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything
Yeah...
Aww. shucks
! If my daddy could see me now
Everything, everything, everything, oh everything.
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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Yo La Tengo
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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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.
i fyou remember the track before this is EXP, which is an interview with Paul Corusoe "on the dodgy subject of are there or are there not UFO's or um flying saucers". In the middle of the interview Corusoe changes into an alien. I think up from the skies is about the alien that evolves during the interview returning to planet earth after many years to find "the stars misplaced" and everyone and everything different.