"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.
Maybe it would be fun
To get a new opinion
Get a little work done
And forget
Maybe it would be cool
If I rocked it old school
Try to break a gold rule
And a sweat
Better than the first time
Better than the worst time
If I could just reverse time
I'd be set
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
She got a new apartment
It's out on the escarpment
And in her glove compartment
Are my songs
She hasn't even heard them
Since she found out what the words meant
She decided she preferred them
All wrong
Kind of like the last time
With a bunch of really fast rhymes
If we're living in the past time
Soon gone
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
We recognize the present
Is half as pleasant
As our nostalgia for
The past'll be presented
Recast and reinvented
Until it's how we meant it
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
He's everything that you need
You wiped out on your ten speed
And either he will succeed
Or just suck
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Begin the...
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Would I be in the clear, G?
Testing 1,2,3
Testing 1,2,3
To get a new opinion
Get a little work done
And forget
Maybe it would be cool
If I rocked it old school
Try to break a gold rule
And a sweat
Better than the first time
Better than the worst time
If I could just reverse time
I'd be set
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
She got a new apartment
It's out on the escarpment
And in her glove compartment
Are my songs
She hasn't even heard them
Since she found out what the words meant
She decided she preferred them
All wrong
Kind of like the last time
With a bunch of really fast rhymes
If we're living in the past time
Soon gone
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
We recognize the present
Is half as pleasant
As our nostalgia for
The past'll be presented
Recast and reinvented
Until it's how we meant it
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
He's everything that you need
You wiped out on your ten speed
And either he will succeed
Or just suck
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Begin the...
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Would I be in the clear, G?
Testing 1,2,3
Testing 1,2,3
Lyrics submitted by neko-chan
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Fast Car
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I'm going to agree with wrion. It's got to be about Ed Robertson wanting to move on from his past. The Barenaked Ladies have very much changed their sound since Maroon. So he's saying that he wants to, sort of, leave the old days behind and try something new. But he'd also like to go back and redo some of the things he'd done.
Awesome song.