"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.
The Kingsmen came together in a garage,
They could hardly even play
But they practiced night
And day pretty soon they got to where they could really
play that song Louie,
Louie
So, they saved up all the money from the shows,
Went in to one of them studios and gave their version of the song a try
Now, I don't know the words to that song Louie,
Louie and I'm pretty sure the singer for the
Kingsmen didn't know 'em either,
If he did know 'em he didn't get 'em right on the record
Cause on the record they sound jumbled in his jaw? It says,
Me think of me girl oh so constantly
Ahmayaaah makaaaah aahh ooohoooh aaaaah
Well, that last part scared everybody from the PTA to the FBI
You see, the kids had been going kind of crazy lately
And it seemed like nobody could figure out why,
So they decided to form a coalition,
Launch an investigation, you know for the children,
they at least had to try
To figure out the words to Louie, Louie
Chorus
It's the feel good hit of this endless summer
It gets these kids out of control
Singin along to that star spangled bummer,
Hail, hail rock and roll
Marilyn Manson's real name isn't even Marilyn Manson,
He's a skinny public high school Kid from Florida,
Not some monster from out of this world and like of
a lot other skinny long hair public
High school kids he was sick of getting
Beaten up by the pulling guard all week only to go out on the weekend,
And watch the Quarterback get all the girls so,
He formed a band man
Now' he gets all the girls,
A few years later a couple of latchkey kids go tragically
Mad and everybody's standing around the television
store at the mall trying to figure out what went wrong,
This guy says,
You think the life of a kid going to high school could've
gotten so bad this other guy says nah,
It's just the words to one of them goddamn Marilyn Manson songs,
You know the one
Chorus
You know, every ten years or so our country and some other little country,
We start firing all of our newest weapons
At each other for some reason or another, right or wrong,
Like it or not, it happens, and when it happens
People get shot and when people get shot,
They show it on tv a lot every night at six o clock
And you don't even have to be eighteen to see it you
don't even have to be in first grade,
First grade where they teach the kid pride
They tell him he'll need to thrive,
In a world where only the strong will survive,
So he's taught the art of more
To compare to and to keep score Monday thru Friday while
He stares at the floor til' Sunday they make him go to
School once more only this time they make him wear a suit and a tie
And listen to some guy who claims to know Where people go
When they die tell him that only the meek are gonna
inherit the earth Well shit,
By this time the kid doesn't know what anything
Is worth, now brothers and sisters I am only one guy
And I don't even know the words to that song Louie,
Louie but I can tell you right now without batting an eye
That the next time some latchkey kid goes wrong
It aint gonna be cause that Eminem gets to say the word Fag in his song
And I'm not trying to preach to ya either,
I'm just trying to sing to ya too, you know string a few words together
Hey kids...
Lets get it on,
Lets get it on
They could hardly even play
But they practiced night
And day pretty soon they got to where they could really
play that song Louie,
Louie
So, they saved up all the money from the shows,
Went in to one of them studios and gave their version of the song a try
Now, I don't know the words to that song Louie,
Louie and I'm pretty sure the singer for the
Kingsmen didn't know 'em either,
If he did know 'em he didn't get 'em right on the record
Cause on the record they sound jumbled in his jaw? It says,
Me think of me girl oh so constantly
Ahmayaaah makaaaah aahh ooohoooh aaaaah
Well, that last part scared everybody from the PTA to the FBI
You see, the kids had been going kind of crazy lately
And it seemed like nobody could figure out why,
So they decided to form a coalition,
Launch an investigation, you know for the children,
they at least had to try
To figure out the words to Louie, Louie
Chorus
It's the feel good hit of this endless summer
It gets these kids out of control
Singin along to that star spangled bummer,
Hail, hail rock and roll
Marilyn Manson's real name isn't even Marilyn Manson,
He's a skinny public high school Kid from Florida,
Not some monster from out of this world and like of
a lot other skinny long hair public
High school kids he was sick of getting
Beaten up by the pulling guard all week only to go out on the weekend,
And watch the Quarterback get all the girls so,
He formed a band man
Now' he gets all the girls,
A few years later a couple of latchkey kids go tragically
Mad and everybody's standing around the television
store at the mall trying to figure out what went wrong,
This guy says,
You think the life of a kid going to high school could've
gotten so bad this other guy says nah,
It's just the words to one of them goddamn Marilyn Manson songs,
You know the one
Chorus
You know, every ten years or so our country and some other little country,
We start firing all of our newest weapons
At each other for some reason or another, right or wrong,
Like it or not, it happens, and when it happens
People get shot and when people get shot,
They show it on tv a lot every night at six o clock
And you don't even have to be eighteen to see it you
don't even have to be in first grade,
First grade where they teach the kid pride
They tell him he'll need to thrive,
In a world where only the strong will survive,
So he's taught the art of more
To compare to and to keep score Monday thru Friday while
He stares at the floor til' Sunday they make him go to
School once more only this time they make him wear a suit and a tie
And listen to some guy who claims to know Where people go
When they die tell him that only the meek are gonna
inherit the earth Well shit,
By this time the kid doesn't know what anything
Is worth, now brothers and sisters I am only one guy
And I don't even know the words to that song Louie,
Louie but I can tell you right now without batting an eye
That the next time some latchkey kid goes wrong
It aint gonna be cause that Eminem gets to say the word Fag in his song
And I'm not trying to preach to ya either,
I'm just trying to sing to ya too, you know string a few words together
Hey kids...
Lets get it on,
Lets get it on
Lyrics submitted by Statbucksbabe28
Ballad Of The Kingsmen Lyrics as written by Todd Daniel Snider
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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“Well, good morning there / What a way to start the day / With everything laid bare,” Ed Sheeran sings in the first verse, enthusiastic to be waking up beside his woman. He apologizes for missing her calls in the second verse and promises to return them because for him, speaking to her is the most important thing. “Well, I get lost inside my head / In this chaos, you’re my calm / And I will find my feet again / ‘Cause еven the worst days of my life will always еnd / At midnight in your arms,” sings Ed Sheeran in the chorus, revelling in his good luck.
This song makes various references to the power of music in society. The Kingsmen sang a simple song that launched an FBI investigation into the lyrics, and Marilyn Manson freaks old people out, but he's really just a "skinny public high school kid from Florida". He says that it's not Manson who inspired the kids (presumably the kids from Columbine) to get guns and shoot their friends. It's only Manson who's empathizing with them. Snider goes on to rant about many other faults of society, the paradoxes of church, and at the end says music is overrated sort of, and that it's really just entertainment.
I don't think he's saying music is overrated, it's just that music doesn't make people crazy. Rational people don't just go out and do something just because they hear it in a song. That's why the ending is so brilliant.
hes showing how censorship is taking over every aspect of our lives.