"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.
Hand me down my walkin' cane
Hand me down my hat
Hurry now and don't be late
'Cause we ain't got time to chat
You and me we're goin' out
To catch the latest sound
Guaranteed to blow your mind
So high you won't come down
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Oh boy, this dude is outta sight!
Everything he does seems to come out right
Once I went to hear them play
At a club outside of town
I was so surprised
I was hypnotized
By the sound this cat put down
When I saw this short fat guy
Stretch a band between his toes
Hey, I laughed so hard
'Cause the man got down
When he finally reached his goal
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Got that rubber band
Up on his toes
And then he wriggled it up
All around his nose
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Playin' all that music, yet keepin' time
Where in the world did he learn that, oh Lord?
Lord, help him get away
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Rubberband man, rubberband man
How much of this stuff do he think we can stand?
So much rhythm, grace, and debonair for one man
And then he had the nerve to wiggle his left toe
Went to his knee, got the feelin' in his head, y'all
Oh, come on baby
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Rubberband man starts to jam
Moving up and down 'cross the land
Got the people all in his wake
Everything probably seems outta place
Just move it, just move, move, move it, just
Rubberband, rubberband man
Just move it, just move, move, move it, just
Rubberband, rubberband man
Get down, oh, get down low
Hand me down my hat
Hurry now and don't be late
'Cause we ain't got time to chat
You and me we're goin' out
To catch the latest sound
Guaranteed to blow your mind
So high you won't come down
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Oh boy, this dude is outta sight!
Everything he does seems to come out right
Once I went to hear them play
At a club outside of town
I was so surprised
I was hypnotized
By the sound this cat put down
When I saw this short fat guy
Stretch a band between his toes
Hey, I laughed so hard
'Cause the man got down
When he finally reached his goal
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Got that rubber band
Up on his toes
And then he wriggled it up
All around his nose
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Playin' all that music, yet keepin' time
Where in the world did he learn that, oh Lord?
Lord, help him get away
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Rubberband man, rubberband man
How much of this stuff do he think we can stand?
So much rhythm, grace, and debonair for one man
And then he had the nerve to wiggle his left toe
Went to his knee, got the feelin' in his head, y'all
Oh, come on baby
Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man
You've never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You're bound to lose control
When the rubberband starts to jam
Rubberband man starts to jam
Moving up and down 'cross the land
Got the people all in his wake
Everything probably seems outta place
Just move it, just move, move, move it, just
Rubberband, rubberband man
Just move it, just move, move, move it, just
Rubberband, rubberband man
Get down, oh, get down low
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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"
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
i love this song, you cant believe how much i love it. (long before the officemax ad)
this song reminds me of my dad, he used to play great music with rubberbands.
Thanks for saying that I LOVE this song too!<br />
Yes, this is the Officemax ad. The meaning is fairly obvious.
This song certainly brings to mind a contemporary of the Spinners--Bootsy Collins. Why? Because Bootsy's Rubber Band really knows how to jam!
Actually, the first time I heard this song was in the movie "Stripes" when Bill Murray and Co. went to the mud wrestling bar. I miss the movies of the early 80's. They don't make 'em like that anymore...
Fans of this song, check out the Electric Six cover.
This song, to me, is about the mind-blowing ability of dance to take us to another more elevated, transportive state of being, not just in our bodies, more so, in our total psyche.
The Rubberband Man simply feels this euphoria and is expanding out and out and within and within until he is simply like rubber, fluid, funky, somewhere between 'grrrr' and 'ahhhh' - Funk and Flow Forever...
This is a really cool song. I guess the song is about a talented musician nicknamed "The Rubberband Man".
Usually, I hate it when bands sell out for commercials, but I never heard this song before that and I'm glad I found it. Deffinetly one of my favorites. My only problem with this song is that I'm from Pittsburgh, and I call it a gumband.
From Wikipedia: The song, written by producer Thom Bell and singer-songwriter Linda Creed, was about Bell's son, who was being teased by his classmates for being overweight. Intended to improve his son's self-image, the song eventually evolved from being about "The Fat Man" to "The Rubberband Man"
remembers Jesse Fuller