"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.
we walk at the paths at the banks of the mighty Susquehanna
with our feet made muddy by your tributaries
that trickle their way to the Chesapeake
its like we follow i-83 down to harbor cities
with strip malls and tar-mac, people swirling and teeming
it seemed so exciting, but now it seems like such a blight
i grew up in kentucky's mt. zion road
all that was there was some old cemetery
all i wanted to be able to walk to the store
now i don't live there but there's too many stores
some apartments, and a sunoco
and i wonder, what did they do with the bodies?
oh, Susquehanna!
we can walk almost anywhere without going anywhere
and i miss that place behind my house
where i hiked and climbed and played
where i ditched this noisy century
or just hid out from the decade
m/i-homes thought it could stand to be updated
forced it all into a grid until it looked like the funny pages
with every trace of life it seems confined within a frame
the faces move from day to day but the strips all look the same
and the punch lines are resoundingly unfunny
for those trapped in this architecture of easy money
and i feel like this could all come to no good
the kids who populate these cul de sacs will never know what stood
beneath their cookie cutter houses: fields and streams and woods
they'll sit in cars and wait for mom to drive them out of this boring neighborhood
oh, Susquehanna!
we can walk almost anywhere without going anywhere
and i wonder, what did they do with the bodies?
with our feet made muddy by your tributaries
that trickle their way to the Chesapeake
its like we follow i-83 down to harbor cities
with strip malls and tar-mac, people swirling and teeming
it seemed so exciting, but now it seems like such a blight
i grew up in kentucky's mt. zion road
all that was there was some old cemetery
all i wanted to be able to walk to the store
now i don't live there but there's too many stores
some apartments, and a sunoco
and i wonder, what did they do with the bodies?
oh, Susquehanna!
we can walk almost anywhere without going anywhere
and i miss that place behind my house
where i hiked and climbed and played
where i ditched this noisy century
or just hid out from the decade
m/i-homes thought it could stand to be updated
forced it all into a grid until it looked like the funny pages
with every trace of life it seems confined within a frame
the faces move from day to day but the strips all look the same
and the punch lines are resoundingly unfunny
for those trapped in this architecture of easy money
and i feel like this could all come to no good
the kids who populate these cul de sacs will never know what stood
beneath their cookie cutter houses: fields and streams and woods
they'll sit in cars and wait for mom to drive them out of this boring neighborhood
oh, Susquehanna!
we can walk almost anywhere without going anywhere
and i wonder, what did they do with the bodies?
Lyrics submitted by KeasbyKnights, edited by anthonyyyg
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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The song is explained in this performance.
youtube.com/watch