"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.
Leigh Fordham sold me out
46 days and the coal ran out
Please come 'round here another day
Sit yourself down when you're ready to stay
She dug down when they took the town
Lookin' for clues but they couldn't be found
Leigh found out she was ready to roam
47 days and the coal came home
Taste the fear
For the devil's drawing near
46 days and the coal ran out
Please come 'round here another day
Sit yourself down when you're ready to stay
She dug down when they took the town
Lookin' for clues but they couldn't be found
Leigh found out she was ready to roam
47 days and the coal came home
Taste the fear
For the devil's drawing near
Lyrics submitted by rlanantelope
46 Days Lyrics as written by Trey Anastasio
Lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I'm a huge phish fan and really loved the live studio recording of Round Room. Unfortunately, this song is lacking in terms of lyrical content, and not much to interpret. Perhaps the voice of the song was a coal miner or coal mine supervisor and Leigh Fordham sold him out to big business and they had 46 days to gather all they could. Leigh, having connections to this big business went down into the mines when the big business came to see if there was anything left. OR Leigh, being a cowardly sellout, went into temporary hiding because he/she (it's an ambiguous name) was neither a real friend of The Singer, who is now looking for Leigh to "repay" (him/her) for selling them out, and big business is just ravaging everything. But then, this sold out land has been discovered to be worthless. Leigh sees an opportunity to flee, and takes it. Meanwhile, the townspeople have hoarded the coal and gone into hiding. On the 47th day, big business leaves having found no spoils and the community comes out of hiding and shares with everyone. The coal came home. I apoloogize for the meandering meanings of this song, I was just trying to think of what it meant off the top of my head...never gave it much thought before-hand because lots of Phish's songs are pretty superficial and just talk about things for the sake of making lyrics to throw on top of some kick ass music.