"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.
Hello tomorrow and good-bye to yesterday
We've been waiting for this moment
And we still don't know what to say
We may never find the answers
or know the reason why
Why we both decided we should say good-bye
Nothing but good things are coming my way
If you are going please let me stay
You bring me down when I'm getting high
You turn me on, I amplify
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
I won't bleed like this forever
I'm down to ride but my wings are severed
Blindside blitz evacuation
I'm stuck in hell your on vacation
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
[Chorus]
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day
I'm still waiting for tomorrow
Tired of living in yesterday
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day I'd be over you
Oceans, devotions, these notions run dry
Floating away and I don't know why
Spend all my days in a bottle thinking
You're like an anchor got me sinking
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
Say good-bye now and mean it forever
Got to move on and keep it together
Forget the things that you've said and you've done
That's in the past, here comes the sun
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
[Chorus]
Hello tomorrow and good-bye to yesterday
We've been waiting for this moment
And we still don't know what to say
We may never find the answers
or know the reason why
Why we both decided we should say good-bye
[Chorus]
Hello tomorrow
1-2-3
I'd be over you (hello tomorrow)
1-2-3
I'd be over you
We've been waiting for this moment
And we still don't know what to say
We may never find the answers
or know the reason why
Why we both decided we should say good-bye
Nothing but good things are coming my way
If you are going please let me stay
You bring me down when I'm getting high
You turn me on, I amplify
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
I won't bleed like this forever
I'm down to ride but my wings are severed
Blindside blitz evacuation
I'm stuck in hell your on vacation
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
[Chorus]
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day
I'm still waiting for tomorrow
Tired of living in yesterday
I've been waiting
Waiting for the day I'd be over you
Oceans, devotions, these notions run dry
Floating away and I don't know why
Spend all my days in a bottle thinking
You're like an anchor got me sinking
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
1-2-3, 1-2-3
Say good-bye now and mean it forever
Got to move on and keep it together
Forget the things that you've said and you've done
That's in the past, here comes the sun
1-2-3 times you've broken me (Broken Me)
[Chorus]
Hello tomorrow and good-bye to yesterday
We've been waiting for this moment
And we still don't know what to say
We may never find the answers
or know the reason why
Why we both decided we should say good-bye
[Chorus]
Hello tomorrow
1-2-3
I'd be over you (hello tomorrow)
1-2-3
I'd be over you
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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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
awww this is like one of ZH's best songs everrrr, and I FINALLY got to see them last night at Warped Tour, they were amazing, but I was pissed cuz they were the last band to play, and they were on a hella small stage, but they still kicked ass.