"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.
On the day that Daniel Cowman stopped existing
the world should've ended right then and there
at precisely four-fifteen when he stopped existing
the world should've ended--how could it go on?
How could it go on when I don't exist? I don't exist...
and now that we got that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly
doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I want
now that we got that clear, and you know that I'm not here
doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I please
the premature ejaculation of his death sentence
hit Daniel in the face like a big round spitball
and everything got hazy in the courtroom
and then he stood up and then he sat back down
another two times in a row
and everything got real slow like a gunshot in the movies
and he remembered heroin boy walking through the door
bouncing off the walls and the floor
taking off his belt, taking off his pants
filling up the bathtub, getting ready to go in for a swim
singing, I don't exist...
and he start remembering...
the heroin boy'd walk through the door
and he was screaming and everybody was, like,
what're you screaming as if it's the end of the world?
and he was, like, well it is
and I was sitting in the corner with my pants down
and I was sure someone next door was blowing up balloons
and they was red and orange
and there was this one lady at the bar and she was trying to buy gin
and this other lady at the bar and she was trying to sell gin
and it worked out good for the boths of them
and heroin boy started taking off his belt
started taking off his pants, started taking off his shoes
filling up the bathtub, getting ready to go in for a swim
I says, no--you're gonna drown
and he says, no--I can't drown
simply because...shhhh...
a man destined to hang can never drown
a man destined to drown can never burn
a man destined to fry can never, ever, ever
die in any other way
frying--lucky that I'm dying by hanging and not drowning
so now that we got that straight, can't I just be left alone?
I want to take a fucking bath
the world should've ended right then and there
at precisely four-fifteen when he stopped existing
the world should've ended--how could it go on?
How could it go on when I don't exist? I don't exist...
and now that we got that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly
doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I want
now that we got that clear, and you know that I'm not here
doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I please
the premature ejaculation of his death sentence
hit Daniel in the face like a big round spitball
and everything got hazy in the courtroom
and then he stood up and then he sat back down
another two times in a row
and everything got real slow like a gunshot in the movies
and he remembered heroin boy walking through the door
bouncing off the walls and the floor
taking off his belt, taking off his pants
filling up the bathtub, getting ready to go in for a swim
singing, I don't exist...
and he start remembering...
the heroin boy'd walk through the door
and he was screaming and everybody was, like,
what're you screaming as if it's the end of the world?
and he was, like, well it is
and I was sitting in the corner with my pants down
and I was sure someone next door was blowing up balloons
and they was red and orange
and there was this one lady at the bar and she was trying to buy gin
and this other lady at the bar and she was trying to sell gin
and it worked out good for the boths of them
and heroin boy started taking off his belt
started taking off his pants, started taking off his shoes
filling up the bathtub, getting ready to go in for a swim
I says, no--you're gonna drown
and he says, no--I can't drown
simply because...shhhh...
a man destined to hang can never drown
a man destined to drown can never burn
a man destined to fry can never, ever, ever
die in any other way
frying--lucky that I'm dying by hanging and not drowning
so now that we got that straight, can't I just be left alone?
I want to take a fucking bath
Lyrics submitted by SoakedinMercury
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Fast Car
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"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"
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"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."
Magical
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Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
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“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.
Here's a new idea.. Maybe it's too literal and not related.. But a year previous to the making of the album Songs, one of Regina's band members (Daniel Cho) died drowned, and according to the websites where I could read about the tragedy, people were still investigating the cause of the accident.. The recue services said he was swimming with a friend in a lake in Montreux around 14:00 when he suddenly went out of sight..
I don't know how this could relate with the lady at the bar and the orange and red balloons.. or to the other ideas about the meaning of the song..
Maybe I'm wrong, but there are a few coincidences..
@GoodbyeMish except that Cho actually drowned in 2010 and the album was released in 2002.