"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.
[Chorus:]
Did You Ever Get A Feeling of Dread?
That everything they're saying's not all that they've said
Why do they want to take us to war yeah
why do they wanna put us in a Government's war?
There's all this fighting and we don't know what for
so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor
[Chorus]
Poisoning the earth and the ground
so death comes swift it never makes a sound
the air is filled with carbon monoxide choke
on the diesel black clouds and the billowing smoke
Why do people fight over religion and politics
I've spent most of my life trying to figure it
out yeah yeah yeah it may be a question that
never gets answered it may result in some kind
of final disaster and oh what a shame it would
be but it would set the world free
[Chorus 4x]
All that they've said oh yeah
Did You Ever Get A Feeling of Dread?
That everything they're saying's not all that they've said
Why do they want to take us to war yeah
why do they wanna put us in a Government's war?
There's all this fighting and we don't know what for
so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor
[Chorus]
Poisoning the earth and the ground
so death comes swift it never makes a sound
the air is filled with carbon monoxide choke
on the diesel black clouds and the billowing smoke
Why do people fight over religion and politics
I've spent most of my life trying to figure it
out yeah yeah yeah it may be a question that
never gets answered it may result in some kind
of final disaster and oh what a shame it would
be but it would set the world free
[Chorus 4x]
All that they've said oh yeah
Lyrics submitted by ruben
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