"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.
Tommy had a watch a good kind of watch
It couldn't tell time if you asked it
Didn't have a face just an ear and an eye
To see him with
Tommy stole candy from the corner store
To feed to the mice that he made a home
By the side of a heater next to his guitar
That he couldn neither play nor destroy
Tommy sent a letter to the Office of Iniquity
Demanding a history of his actions
But the letter was returned just two days gone
There was no Office of Iniquity
Tommy didn't see so well and he didn't have a radio
He'd talk to himself in different voices
Or sing to himself in a Russian dialect
Invented on a Sunday afternoon
Tommy stole a limp and he borrowed a demeanour
So he'd scare anyone who'd want to talk away
'Cos they frightened him so much that he'd pee down his legs
As he tried to find the words
Tommy wore the helmet of a frustrated miner
Digging for words as though gold
Standing in the mud in his dark grey fedora
Wearing his knee-patched dungarees
Tommy was lone when the fire started
High behind the wheel of a Colt 45
With a clip full of ether and a bucket full of gas
And a belly full of turpentine
Tommy made sure there was no-one in danger
By knocking on each door like a madman
Then he locked himself in and did the whirling dervish
Tipped the candle over on the floor
Tommy fell asleep before the firemen came
Which was good because they scared him anyway
And all they ever found were the mice inside the fridge
In a box with some cheese and a hand warmer
Run on batteries
Tommy was a good man nobody knew
It couldn't tell time if you asked it
Didn't have a face just an ear and an eye
To see him with
Tommy stole candy from the corner store
To feed to the mice that he made a home
By the side of a heater next to his guitar
That he couldn neither play nor destroy
Tommy sent a letter to the Office of Iniquity
Demanding a history of his actions
But the letter was returned just two days gone
There was no Office of Iniquity
Tommy didn't see so well and he didn't have a radio
He'd talk to himself in different voices
Or sing to himself in a Russian dialect
Invented on a Sunday afternoon
Tommy stole a limp and he borrowed a demeanour
So he'd scare anyone who'd want to talk away
'Cos they frightened him so much that he'd pee down his legs
As he tried to find the words
Tommy wore the helmet of a frustrated miner
Digging for words as though gold
Standing in the mud in his dark grey fedora
Wearing his knee-patched dungarees
Tommy was lone when the fire started
High behind the wheel of a Colt 45
With a clip full of ether and a bucket full of gas
And a belly full of turpentine
Tommy made sure there was no-one in danger
By knocking on each door like a madman
Then he locked himself in and did the whirling dervish
Tipped the candle over on the floor
Tommy fell asleep before the firemen came
Which was good because they scared him anyway
And all they ever found were the mice inside the fridge
In a box with some cheese and a hand warmer
Run on batteries
Tommy was a good man nobody knew
Lyrics submitted by Moontouched
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