"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.
When I take the prisoners swimming
They have the time of their lives
I love to watch them floating
On their backs
Unburden and relaxed
I sit in the tall grass and look the other way
And when I hall them in they always sing
Our sencencess will not served
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
Most nights, I go for a drive to to the highest place, I can find
Stand there on a cliff with gooseflesh
Watching the wind rip the leaves of the trees
Death defying, every breath
Death defying
Soon we all be back in the yard behind the wall
Leaving heart
Dreaming of cool rivers and tall grass
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
They have the time of their lives
I love to watch them floating
On their backs
Unburden and relaxed
I sit in the tall grass and look the other way
And when I hall them in they always sing
Our sencencess will not served
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
Most nights, I go for a drive to to the highest place, I can find
Stand there on a cliff with gooseflesh
Watching the wind rip the leaves of the trees
Death defying, every breath
Death defying
Soon we all be back in the yard behind the wall
Leaving heart
Dreaming of cool rivers and tall grass
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
We are constantly on trial
It's a way to be free
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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”
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
This has to be one of the loveliest and saddest songs in Smog's catalogue (which says a great deal taking into account everything Bill Callahan has done). The narrator is the prison guard of the title, who believes that his life is every bit as narrow and circumscribed as the prisoners he is supposed to be guarding- hence the fact he can only "sit in the tall grass and look the other way" when they enjoy themselves in the river. He tries to feel the same sort of peace that the prisoners enjoy in the river by driving around late at night and standing on the edges of cliffs, things the prisoners obviously don't have the freedom to do. He can't escape this sense of imprisonment, however, which is why he includes himself with the prisoners when he says "soon we will all be back in the yard, behind the wall, living hard, dreaming of cool rivers and tall grass" and again repeats that "we are constantly on trial." Very haunting.