"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.
Yes indeed it's oh so very nice of you to ask
Still I can't help wondering if I'm equal to the task
Of washing up and getting dressed and waiting on a train
To come so far to watch the Statehouse burn down in the rain
Well, the highway's choked with minivans and traitors heading west
Here I am still wheezing like a sick bird in a nest
My heart is weak, my face is long, I'm not up to the strain
To breathe the smoke and watch the Statehouse burn down in the rain
Well I'm not your father
And I'm not your lover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
You'd better take cover
You'd better take cover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
The Governor kept telling us he was the People's voice
He said the time is high for all of us to make a choice
Then he jammed his little finger in a rusty weather vane
And ran out of the Statehouse as it burned down in the rain
It's easy making plans out walking in the sun
Any fool can kick an old man down on the ground and turn and run
But it's gonna take some doing, yeah, some doing to explain
All the cheers the night the Statehouse burned down in the rain
I'm not your father
I'm not your lover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
You'd better take cover
You'd better take cover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
Oh yeah
The pillars and the amber waves, the bannisters and such
All that seemed too far away, too far away to touch
We never found the numbers or the language to complain
Until the night the Statehouse up and burned down in the rain
Still I can't help wondering if I'm equal to the task
Of washing up and getting dressed and waiting on a train
To come so far to watch the Statehouse burn down in the rain
Well, the highway's choked with minivans and traitors heading west
Here I am still wheezing like a sick bird in a nest
My heart is weak, my face is long, I'm not up to the strain
To breathe the smoke and watch the Statehouse burn down in the rain
Well I'm not your father
And I'm not your lover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
You'd better take cover
You'd better take cover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
The Governor kept telling us he was the People's voice
He said the time is high for all of us to make a choice
Then he jammed his little finger in a rusty weather vane
And ran out of the Statehouse as it burned down in the rain
It's easy making plans out walking in the sun
Any fool can kick an old man down on the ground and turn and run
But it's gonna take some doing, yeah, some doing to explain
All the cheers the night the Statehouse burned down in the rain
I'm not your father
I'm not your lover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
You'd better take cover
You'd better take cover
Something is rising
And it's boiling over
Oh yeah
The pillars and the amber waves, the bannisters and such
All that seemed too far away, too far away to touch
We never found the numbers or the language to complain
Until the night the Statehouse up and burned down in the rain
Lyrics submitted by SantanicoPandemonium
Statehouse (Burning in the Rain) Lyrics as written by Chuck Prophet
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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