"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.
Well I know that you know
That you've become the target of this hand
With never even asking
Well I know that you know
That you're the only thing that I can stand
So how could your hair
Have the nerve to dance around like that, blowing?
And how could the air
Have the nerve to blow your hair around like that?
I'm waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm looking for a trap door trigger
To drop me out of your home view
Yes I'm listening, I'm listening
I can tell that you are serious
Your looking for that hurt look around my mouth
The look of a steep fall
Oh, well, that's how Hersey put it
So you can make another claim
Well go ahead and make it
So you can make another claim
Well go ahead and make it
I'm just waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm praying for a trap door trigger
I'm just waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm praying for a trap door trigger
Yes I'm listening
I can tell you're serious
That you've become the target of this hand
With never even asking
Well I know that you know
That you're the only thing that I can stand
So how could your hair
Have the nerve to dance around like that, blowing?
And how could the air
Have the nerve to blow your hair around like that?
I'm waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm looking for a trap door trigger
To drop me out of your home view
Yes I'm listening, I'm listening
I can tell that you are serious
Your looking for that hurt look around my mouth
The look of a steep fall
Oh, well, that's how Hersey put it
So you can make another claim
Well go ahead and make it
So you can make another claim
Well go ahead and make it
I'm just waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm praying for a trap door trigger
I'm just waiting for a ninety-mile water wall
To take me out of your home view
I'm praying for a trap door trigger
Yes I'm listening
I can tell you're serious
Lyrics submitted by SomethingClever
90-Mile Water Wall Lyrics as written by Matthew Berninger Aaron Dessner
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Mountain Song
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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."
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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.
Plastic Bag
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Shame or sorrow may be here. He wants to disappear (trap door, "take me out of your view"). Her attention on him is unbearable either because of her disapproval, or his vulnerability ("hurt look", "steep fall"). He may be told-off or confronted by his love. Or she broke up with him and it's unbearable to him. The "90-mile water wall" is imagined relief, bordering on suicidal in its intensity. He also sought relief in humor, as told indirectly by "Yes I'm listening, I can tell you're serious," underscoring her impression that he is not.
I can't place "target of this hand," possibly violence. Harsh to speculate on that, but also because it's a harsh idea, it could understandably be worded vague and obscure.
Infidelity may be impled by "you're the only thing that I can stand" where he professes his ultimate loyalty to her.
There's a breakdown of communication ("I know that you know" as part of a circular argument going nowhhere).
And he's painfully (maybe ambivalently?) attracted to her, positively worshiping her hair, twice. I wonder if there's more than poetic significance to the inward and outward directions of her attractiveness: both her hair and the air are blamed.
(Point of order, we all agree that dissection of a song and profaning poetry by interpretation can be consistent with deep admiration and deeper appreciation, right? That to distract one from a song's fierce effects, one might seek relief in clinical analysis. Especially when no tidal wave is handy.)