"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.
High above Manhattan town
What floats and has a shape like that
Fans like us who watch the skies
We know it's Morph the Cat
Gliding like a big blue cloud
From Tomkins Square to Upper Broadway
Beyond the park to Sugar Hill
Stops a minute for a latte
He oozes down the heating duct
Swims like seaweed down the hall
He briefly digs your wiggy pad
And seeps out through the wall
It's kind of like an arctic mind bath
Cool and sweet and slightly rough
Liquid light on New York City
Like Christmas without the chintzy stuff
What exactly does he want
This Rabelasian puff of smoke
To make you feel all warm and cozy
Like you heard a good joke
Like you heard an Arlen tune
Or bought yourself a crazy hat
Like you had a Mango Cooler
Ooh. Morph the Cat
He's all the talk in shops and schoolyards
Sutton Place - The Automat
Players playin' in da Bronx
Respect to Morph the Cat
It's kind of like an arctic mind bath
Cool and sweet and slightly rough
Liquid light on New York City
Like Christmas without the chintzy stuff
So rich is his charisma
You can almost hear it sing
He skims the rules
And bells begin to ring
Chinese cashiers can feel it now
Grand old gals at evening mass
Young racketeers
And teenage models
Laughing on the grass
Blessed Yankees have an ally
When this feline comes to bat
Bringing joy to old Manhattan
All watch the skies for Morph the Cat
What floats and has a shape like that
Fans like us who watch the skies
We know it's Morph the Cat
Gliding like a big blue cloud
From Tomkins Square to Upper Broadway
Beyond the park to Sugar Hill
Stops a minute for a latte
He oozes down the heating duct
Swims like seaweed down the hall
He briefly digs your wiggy pad
And seeps out through the wall
It's kind of like an arctic mind bath
Cool and sweet and slightly rough
Liquid light on New York City
Like Christmas without the chintzy stuff
What exactly does he want
This Rabelasian puff of smoke
To make you feel all warm and cozy
Like you heard a good joke
Like you heard an Arlen tune
Or bought yourself a crazy hat
Like you had a Mango Cooler
Ooh. Morph the Cat
He's all the talk in shops and schoolyards
Sutton Place - The Automat
Players playin' in da Bronx
Respect to Morph the Cat
It's kind of like an arctic mind bath
Cool and sweet and slightly rough
Liquid light on New York City
Like Christmas without the chintzy stuff
So rich is his charisma
You can almost hear it sing
He skims the rules
And bells begin to ring
Chinese cashiers can feel it now
Grand old gals at evening mass
Young racketeers
And teenage models
Laughing on the grass
Blessed Yankees have an ally
When this feline comes to bat
Bringing joy to old Manhattan
All watch the skies for Morph the Cat
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More Featured Meanings
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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
All of Donald Fagan's solo works are concept albums. "Morph the Cat" is no exception. In an interview Fagen described the album as being "about the death of culture, the death of politics, the beginning of the end of my life." as well as "New Yorkers dealing with aftershocks" of 9/11. Morph the Cat is perceived contradictorily as both positive and negative because as Fagen put it: "the cat is narcotizing the citizens. I observe it in people, this mind-death, these layers of brain-washing that's gone on for so many years. It's in the techniques of political machines, the unbelievable stupidity on television." In part the" narcotizing" of the cat seems conceptually similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show tune "Rose Tint My World," a reference to the expression defining how one distortedly wants to see only a desired perception of the good and refusing to see a harsh reality as demonstrated by the lyric: "Rose tints my world and keeps me safe from my trouble and pain" As such, the cat seems to be called "Morph" due to its ubiquitous influence of distorting reality and creating delusions. i.e. "morphing" reality.