"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.
I saw your face
In a pretty magazine
You don't even know
Where you are and what you've seen
Why do you lie?
Do you need to fill us fear?
What's that worth to you?
Oh we used to look up to you
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just doesn't sell
If you've got better things to do
I try to run but my legs ache
The photographs that I refuse to take
Oh will it never end
We are alone
Departed from our bones
What's that worth to you?
Oh we used to look up to you
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just doesn't sell
If you've got better things to do
Am I hiding again?
Am I hiding again?
Tell me how to live my life
Ooh ooh ooh
And the sun is shining down, yeah
And the sun is shining down
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just never sells
If you've got better things to do
Am I hiding again?
Am I hiding again?
Tell me how to live my life
Ooh ooh ooh
And the sun is shining down, yeah
Yeah the sun it's shining down.
In a pretty magazine
You don't even know
Where you are and what you've seen
Why do you lie?
Do you need to fill us fear?
What's that worth to you?
Oh we used to look up to you
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just doesn't sell
If you've got better things to do
I try to run but my legs ache
The photographs that I refuse to take
Oh will it never end
We are alone
Departed from our bones
What's that worth to you?
Oh we used to look up to you
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just doesn't sell
If you've got better things to do
Am I hiding again?
Am I hiding again?
Tell me how to live my life
Ooh ooh ooh
And the sun is shining down, yeah
And the sun is shining down
Oh my god I know too well
Being sweet just never sells
If you've got better things to do
Am I hiding again?
Am I hiding again?
Tell me how to live my life
Ooh ooh ooh
And the sun is shining down, yeah
Yeah the sun it's shining down.
Lyrics submitted by bing_redboy
Shiny Magazine Lyrics as written by Nicholas John Cester Christopher Cester
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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Well I think that it could be about a girl of celebrity status that people look up to, this person being in a magazine doesnt sell when you make stupid ideas. And "my legs ache", I think means that they don't like the press coverage and pictures being taken when it puts them under bad light, but they are always somewhere that they can capture an image of them.