"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.
It's the smell of hot summertime trash,
it's the city noise of a busy street
it's a train derailed and tow car head on freeway crash
each time we meet
"and if it comes as some sort of surprise," she said
"that I seem so composed,
I've keptm this moment closer to my eyes," she said
"than the glasses resting on the edge of my nose."
shadow am I!
a question of a person, no said replay
wolf am I!
and shadow cast on the sheep as I pass by
shadow am I, or like a
wearling-black-socks-and-white-woolen-locks
wolf am I, and shadow.
she was graceful and green as a stem,
but I walk heavy on delicate ground
(((... as I go showing off again,
self impressed by how well I can put myself down!!
and then go again, tot he next further removed level
of that same exact feigned humility!!!)))
[this for me goes on and on to the point of nausea]
shadow am I!
like a suspicion that's never confirmed
but it's never denied
Wolf am I!
(((no, "shadow" I think is better,
as I"m not so much something as the absence of something)))
So SHADOW AM I!
the material world seems to me like a newspaper headline -
it explicitly demands your attention
and it may even contain some truth,
but what's really going on here?
one day the water's gonna wash it away
and on that day, nothing clever to say.
it's the city noise of a busy street
it's a train derailed and tow car head on freeway crash
each time we meet
"and if it comes as some sort of surprise," she said
"that I seem so composed,
I've keptm this moment closer to my eyes," she said
"than the glasses resting on the edge of my nose."
shadow am I!
a question of a person, no said replay
wolf am I!
and shadow cast on the sheep as I pass by
shadow am I, or like a
wearling-black-socks-and-white-woolen-locks
wolf am I, and shadow.
she was graceful and green as a stem,
but I walk heavy on delicate ground
(((... as I go showing off again,
self impressed by how well I can put myself down!!
and then go again, tot he next further removed level
of that same exact feigned humility!!!)))
[this for me goes on and on to the point of nausea]
shadow am I!
like a suspicion that's never confirmed
but it's never denied
Wolf am I!
(((no, "shadow" I think is better,
as I"m not so much something as the absence of something)))
So SHADOW AM I!
the material world seems to me like a newspaper headline -
it explicitly demands your attention
and it may even contain some truth,
but what's really going on here?
one day the water's gonna wash it away
and on that day, nothing clever to say.
Lyrics submitted by Fat Kid With Asthma
Wolf Am I! (And Shadow) Lyrics as written by
Lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, TERRORBIRD PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I know what you mean about this song not being quite like the others. When he introduced this song he claimed the drummer wrote it (explaining the rock-out part of the song, maybe?) but this also might explain the lyrics, so they might be the drummer's words instead of the singers... though this would be a feeling Aaron might have, I wouldn't think he'd have expressed it this way, given every other mewithoutYou song out there. But, as far as drummers writing songs goes, this song is pretty damn good.