"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.
Everyone sees through you
How do you sleep at night?
Translucent eyelids dont keep out the light
Eyes that bulge apathetically
From your engorged (yet empty) head
Resting on a pillow bursting with dreams that will never take flight
Songs that one time soothed their weary minds and tired limbs
Become hauntingly, disturbingly, and loudly chanted hymns
Frozen-hearted martyr-maker
What keeps you safe and warm at night?
A blanket woven with the flowers of forced labor
Dyed and colored with the blood
That you robbed from prisoners and slaves
Admit it, you get off more when they are fighting to escape
And what holds you up there,
High above the rest of us?
Mighty only if the sheets werent pulled over your head
The posts of your bed carved
From the bleached bones of your dead
The faces of your apparitions dripping with the tears they shed
This is where majesty lies awake feeling corruptly luxurious
Is this where dignity lies awake? In a cradle fit for a king?
Frozen-hearted martyr-maker
What keeps you safe and warm at night?
A blanket woven with the flowers of forced labor
Dyed and colored with the blood
That you robbed from prisoners and slaves
Admit it, you get off more when they are fighting to escape
You are not my hero; youre only my sovereign
Im not encouraged to follow in your noble, shallow footsteps;
Just expected to obey
And even though youre the one that represents all of humanity
You are still only human
The backbone of immortality breaks every time:
Our fatal flaws turn to fatal lies
How do you sleep at night?
Translucent eyelids dont keep out the light
Eyes that bulge apathetically
From your engorged (yet empty) head
Resting on a pillow bursting with dreams that will never take flight
Songs that one time soothed their weary minds and tired limbs
Become hauntingly, disturbingly, and loudly chanted hymns
Frozen-hearted martyr-maker
What keeps you safe and warm at night?
A blanket woven with the flowers of forced labor
Dyed and colored with the blood
That you robbed from prisoners and slaves
Admit it, you get off more when they are fighting to escape
And what holds you up there,
High above the rest of us?
Mighty only if the sheets werent pulled over your head
The posts of your bed carved
From the bleached bones of your dead
The faces of your apparitions dripping with the tears they shed
This is where majesty lies awake feeling corruptly luxurious
Is this where dignity lies awake? In a cradle fit for a king?
Frozen-hearted martyr-maker
What keeps you safe and warm at night?
A blanket woven with the flowers of forced labor
Dyed and colored with the blood
That you robbed from prisoners and slaves
Admit it, you get off more when they are fighting to escape
You are not my hero; youre only my sovereign
Im not encouraged to follow in your noble, shallow footsteps;
Just expected to obey
And even though youre the one that represents all of humanity
You are still only human
The backbone of immortality breaks every time:
Our fatal flaws turn to fatal lies
Lyrics submitted by B12
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