"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.
There's a prophet on a mountain and he's making up dinner
With long division and writing crop
Anybody can feel like a winner
When it's served up piping hot
But the people aren't looking for a handout
They're America's working corps
Can this be what they voted for?
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
Declining crime
From the force to the union shops
The war economy is making new jobs
But the people who benefit most
Are breaking bread with their benevolent hosts
You never stole from the rich to give to the poor
All they ever gave to them was a war
And a foreign enemy to deplore
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
Declining crime
We've got to kill 'em in the end Before they reach for their checks
Squeeze some blue collars Let them bleed from their necks
Seize a few dollars from the people who sweat
'Cause it's freedom or death and they won't question it
At a job site the boss is god like
Conditioned workhorses park at a stoplight
Seasoned vets with their feet in nets
A stones throw away from a rock fight
But not tonight, feed 'em death
Here comes another ration (feed them death)
'Cause they're the finest in the nation (feed them death)
But there's nothing left to feed them
When it's freedom or it's death
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
With long division and writing crop
Anybody can feel like a winner
When it's served up piping hot
But the people aren't looking for a handout
They're America's working corps
Can this be what they voted for?
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
Declining crime
From the force to the union shops
The war economy is making new jobs
But the people who benefit most
Are breaking bread with their benevolent hosts
You never stole from the rich to give to the poor
All they ever gave to them was a war
And a foreign enemy to deplore
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
Declining crime
We've got to kill 'em in the end Before they reach for their checks
Squeeze some blue collars Let them bleed from their necks
Seize a few dollars from the people who sweat
'Cause it's freedom or death and they won't question it
At a job site the boss is god like
Conditioned workhorses park at a stoplight
Seasoned vets with their feet in nets
A stones throw away from a rock fight
But not tonight, feed 'em death
Here comes another ration (feed them death)
'Cause they're the finest in the nation (feed them death)
But there's nothing left to feed them
When it's freedom or it's death
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war
Let them eat war
There's an urgent need to feed
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
Haha. Yeah. Extra point: you probably know this, but Marie Antoinette's solution to poverty was 'if they have no bread, give them cake to eat'. Song title implies that GWB says 'let them it war'. Obviousness.