"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.
Told my baby one more time
Don't make me sit all alone and cry
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
I'm like a fish out of water
A cat in a tree
You don't even want to talk to me
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
See I got a candle and it burns so bright
In my window every night
Well it's over I know but I can't let go
You don't like to see me standing around
Feel like I been shot and didn't fall down
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
Turn off trouble like you turn off a light
Went off and left me it just ain't right
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
Round every corner something I see
Bring me right back how it used to be
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
Don't make me sit all alone and cry
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
I'm like a fish out of water
A cat in a tree
You don't even want to talk to me
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
See I got a candle and it burns so bright
In my window every night
Well it's over I know but I can't let go
You don't like to see me standing around
Feel like I been shot and didn't fall down
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
Turn off trouble like you turn off a light
Went off and left me it just ain't right
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
Round every corner something I see
Bring me right back how it used to be
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
He won't take me back when I come around
Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
It's over I know it but I can't let go
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
The meaning is pretty obvious - this man has left her and she can't keep going back to him - but this song is aweosme. Great instrumental and lyrics.
oh man. beautiful song in heartache. my love life of the past year.
People are so frikkin lazy on the Internet...copy and paste, copy and paste....don't bother to proofread anything or go back to the original recording and check if the lyrics as transcribed are correct and heaven forbid you should use actual logic to see if the transcription makes any sense! OK, all of that preamble was just a precursor to inform all the people with tin ears out there that the expression used in this song is "PUTS me out" and not "PULL me out". Get it? Who has EVER said, of their man/woman "yeah, he totally pulled me out"? I mean, unless you were stuck in a hole or some kind of whirling vortex that they rescued you from! When would a person rejecting you ever be said to be pulling you out? If your answer was "Never" then you are way more intelligent than the apparently thousands of people who keep reproducing and sending around these WRONG lyrics to this song (which was also NOT written by Lucinda Williams, as if anyone cares...) If a human and not a robot is managing this site, then please, for the love of god would you just correct the lyrics? It goes like this:" He won't take me back when I come around / Says he's sorry then PUTS me out". The keen observer will notice that the expression to put someone out, meaning to kick em out o yer house/life/bed etc. occurs in many hundreds of blues, soul, rock, and jazz tunes. Meanwhile, the expression to pull someone out is limited to tales of people being rescued from holes and the occasional whirling vortex. Hmmmm. which do you think is more likely to have been worked into the lyrics of "Can't Let Go"? Gee whillikers, that's a real head-scratcher.....