"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.
Woke him up with a barrel to his head
His eyes shut tight bracing for the blow
Resigning his life to the
Metal held in another man’s hand
Twenty days in a concrete fallout
What life have I to take your own
Oh my country, won’t you call out
Doorbells are ringing with boxes of bones
From another land’s war torn corners
To a prison cell in my own
Punish me for not taking your orders
But don’t lock me up for not leavin’ my home
Your words just a bloody fallacy
A house of cards you painted white
You tried to recreate Normandy
But you made up the reason to fight
And now red oil is spillin’ down on the street
And your eyes too big for the belly is weak
Will you not refuse this currency
Or is blood money just money to you
Is blood money just money to you
Twenty days in a concrete fallout
What life have I to take your own
Oh my country, won’t you call out
Doorbells are ringing with boxes of bones
From another land’s war torn corners
To a prison cell in my own
Punish me for not taking your orders
But don’t lock me up for not leavin’ my home
Camilo
Camilo
Leavin’ my home
Camilo
His eyes shut tight bracing for the blow
Resigning his life to the
Metal held in another man’s hand
Twenty days in a concrete fallout
What life have I to take your own
Oh my country, won’t you call out
Doorbells are ringing with boxes of bones
From another land’s war torn corners
To a prison cell in my own
Punish me for not taking your orders
But don’t lock me up for not leavin’ my home
Your words just a bloody fallacy
A house of cards you painted white
You tried to recreate Normandy
But you made up the reason to fight
And now red oil is spillin’ down on the street
And your eyes too big for the belly is weak
Will you not refuse this currency
Or is blood money just money to you
Is blood money just money to you
Twenty days in a concrete fallout
What life have I to take your own
Oh my country, won’t you call out
Doorbells are ringing with boxes of bones
From another land’s war torn corners
To a prison cell in my own
Punish me for not taking your orders
But don’t lock me up for not leavin’ my home
Camilo
Camilo
Leavin’ my home
Camilo
Lyrics submitted by Test For Echo
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To platnumben09- I understand what you're trying to get across, but the situation was unfair for him. True, he knew he was going to fight in a war, but he had never experienced it in person before. He probably had never killed someone before, and I could imagine that it would be quite traumatic.
Another point, is that when you sign up to go fight in the army, you're pretty much volunteering yourself. Since it was your choice to start in the first place, why shouldn't you be able to end when you want it to?
I think that this is a great song, and his story should get more attention.