"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 will bury you in time
When the sea begins to slide
Into this hole where I am smiling on your shoulder
You have buried my beliefs
Where all you sisters sleep
That there scent the purity will make
When the youth is over
Frozen in some lost October
And I am breathing into you
It makes your features move
And they shimmer like balloons that fly above the ocean
All the world is waiting here
You can hear the children cheer
But they'll need you when you're near
The brink of complete implosion
Crown your king when your life is broken
Everything you are I'm tearing through
Everything you want I'm wanting too
I gave you more than I thought I could ever do
But I will never break you down
And if I was the king of all the kids
You'd hear me singing in my spit
But all you would hear is the shit inside my burnt emotions
I will bury you in time
When the sea begins to slide
Into this hole where you and I will sing our songs unbroken
As the water starts its choking
Ah, dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
When the sea begins to slide
Into this hole where I am smiling on your shoulder
You have buried my beliefs
Where all you sisters sleep
That there scent the purity will make
When the youth is over
Frozen in some lost October
And I am breathing into you
It makes your features move
And they shimmer like balloons that fly above the ocean
All the world is waiting here
You can hear the children cheer
But they'll need you when you're near
The brink of complete implosion
Crown your king when your life is broken
Everything you are I'm tearing through
Everything you want I'm wanting too
I gave you more than I thought I could ever do
But I will never break you down
And if I was the king of all the kids
You'd hear me singing in my spit
But all you would hear is the shit inside my burnt emotions
I will bury you in time
When the sea begins to slide
Into this hole where you and I will sing our songs unbroken
As the water starts its choking
Ah, dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
dee dee dee dee dee
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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"
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”
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.
I've got some kind of theory about this song talking about Jeff Mangum being the you-person too but the you-person would be presenting him as a singer, not as a person, he does the same sort of thing in Little birds when he sings : "open up my mouth when all you even hear is singing, put your hand within me and you know what I'm feeling".
I will bury you in time
Bury you in time, could be an announcement of him stopping releasing music, as we all know Jeff Mangum stopped releasing music after ITAOTS.
You have buried my beliefs He has somehow lost his belief in the singing side of him, that music isn't the way to solve everything, this he explained also in an interview with Pitchfork (if I remember correctly)
And I am breathing into you It makes your features move
Breating into you, obviously he is the you-person, and make features move, the misery in Jeff Mangum comes out through the singing of the you-person
You can hear the children cheer But they'll need you when you're near
About the fans?
Everything you are I'm tearing through Everything you want I'm wanting too I gave you more than I thought I could ever do But I will never break you
He never expected himself to get so famous with his music. The I will never break you part talks about the fact that he will return to write songs some day (hurray!!! ^^)
And if I was the king of all the kids You'd you hear me singing in my spit But all you would hear is the shit inside my burnt emotions
If he somehow would start singing not as the you-character but as just himself it would be too sick for people to listen too (in the days when he was recording ITAOTS, Jeff doubted various times wheter or not his songs weren't too sick to be released)
Into this hole where you and I will sing our songs unbroken
Another clue that he and the you person could be the same
I would like to remind you this is a pure subjective thing how I view this song, further it's one of my fevourite songs from NMH, basicly beacuse of the intense singing of Jeff here.