"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.
If you've got a pack of trouble
weighing on your worried mind
If you tend to see things double
and you can't unwind
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
Situated north of Nancy
Just a little east of west
People there do as they fancy
Dressed in fancy dress
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
There's a man with a band
Under the trees
Giving out the sweetest sound
While the birds and the bees everywhere
A-buzz-a-buzz-a-buzzin' around
So onomatopoeic evening
Hustle up a one way fare
Organize your time of leaving
A bus'll take you there
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
weighing on your worried mind
If you tend to see things double
and you can't unwind
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
Situated north of Nancy
Just a little east of west
People there do as they fancy
Dressed in fancy dress
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
There's a man with a band
Under the trees
Giving out the sweetest sound
While the birds and the bees everywhere
A-buzz-a-buzz-a-buzzin' around
So onomatopoeic evening
Hustle up a one way fare
Organize your time of leaving
A bus'll take you there
Take a trip to Green Street Green
Get yourself a little scene
Everything is kind of groovy
down at Green Street Green
Lyrics submitted by Rudi3
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Green Street Green is a district on the edge of Orpington in the outer London suburbs, and I lived near there when the song came out. Nothing in the song in any way relates to the place* and I remember the band saying at the time that they had never been there.
*except for it being kind of groovy of course