"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.
NARRATOR:
Behold the boy - The stranger, the working man's son
With skin like white lightning
And eyes like two shots from a gun
They'll teach him to pray and work everyday
He'll learn how to sweat in the sun
But God has a place - A place for him in His plan
He won't be like his old man
He won't be made to crawl
His folks named him John
But everyone else called him Snow
With flesh bright as Sunday
And a face full of something unknown
Shunned as he grew, he finally withdrew
Asleep in a world all his own
Then he awoke like a child in the Promised Land
With barely the strength to stand
And tears in his eyes
He's a stranger in a strange land from a world far away
Like a savior in the wasteland with a high price to pay
He's a stranger in a strange land
And he can't find his way home
At seventeen years old he awoke from his world of gray
(He awoke to a time gone away)
With a gift ever-reaching and a calling he had to obey
(They watched as he left home one day)
They all looked on
While the prodigal son
Left the home of his father that day
Hit New York City with just the shirt on his back
With a tape deck and battery pack
And no turning back...
He's a stranger in a strange land from a world far away
Like a savior in the wasteland with a high price to pay
He's a stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Behold the boy - The stranger, the working man's son
With skin like white lightning
And eyes like two shots from a gun
They'll teach him to pray and work everyday
He'll learn how to sweat in the sun
But God has a place - A place for him in His plan
He won't be like his old man
He won't be made to crawl
His folks named him John
But everyone else called him Snow
With flesh bright as Sunday
And a face full of something unknown
Shunned as he grew, he finally withdrew
Asleep in a world all his own
Then he awoke like a child in the Promised Land
With barely the strength to stand
And tears in his eyes
He's a stranger in a strange land from a world far away
Like a savior in the wasteland with a high price to pay
He's a stranger in a strange land
And he can't find his way home
At seventeen years old he awoke from his world of gray
(He awoke to a time gone away)
With a gift ever-reaching and a calling he had to obey
(They watched as he left home one day)
They all looked on
While the prodigal son
Left the home of his father that day
Hit New York City with just the shirt on his back
With a tape deck and battery pack
And no turning back...
He's a stranger in a strange land from a world far away
Like a savior in the wasteland with a high price to pay
He's a stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Lyrics submitted by Idan
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Fast Car
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"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:
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