"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.
Hip hip hooray
Talk to me and I'll be a saint
Take off your clothes
Grave-starved ghost
And don't be ashamed
If I'm watchin'
Don't stop talkin'
Just start talkin'
Ooooh...
You sat and stared
In your grandmother's chair
In that favorite room
And he, drunkenly
Four for three
Pressin' on you
Oh darling
You're cryin'
You're cryin'
Ooooh...
Oh darling
Stop cryin'
Just stop cryin'
Ooooh...
Talk to me and I'll be a saint
Take off your clothes
Grave-starved ghost
And don't be ashamed
If I'm watchin'
Don't stop talkin'
Just start talkin'
Ooooh...
You sat and stared
In your grandmother's chair
In that favorite room
And he, drunkenly
Four for three
Pressin' on you
Oh darling
You're cryin'
You're cryin'
Ooooh...
Oh darling
Stop cryin'
Just stop cryin'
Ooooh...
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
i always think of rape when listening to this song. am i crazy ? does anyone have a better explanation ?
@immekusaurus I do too. I think it makes sense when you look at the lyrics.
@immekusaurus I don't think you're crazy... I'm pretty sure it's pretty adjacent to that. Like with Avalanche, a lot of it seems to deal with the emptiness of relationships with others if not directly referencing sex work. So I don't know if it's about a sexual assault, but it definitely seems to be about a very negative, damaging experience with sex...