"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.
Some say it was a warning
Some say it was a sign
I was standing right there
When it came down from the sky
The way it spoke to us
You felt it from inside
Said it was up to us
Up to us to decide
You've become a virus
That's killing off his host
We been watching you with all of our eyes
And what you seem to value most
So much potential
Or so we used to say
Your greed, self-importance and your arrogance
You piss it all away
We heard her cry
We have come to intervene
You will change your ways and you will make amends
Or we will wipe this place clean
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Ticking away
Some say it was a sign
I was standing right there
When it came down from the sky
The way it spoke to us
You felt it from inside
Said it was up to us
Up to us to decide
You've become a virus
That's killing off his host
We been watching you with all of our eyes
And what you seem to value most
So much potential
Or so we used to say
Your greed, self-importance and your arrogance
You piss it all away
We heard her cry
We have come to intervene
You will change your ways and you will make amends
Or we will wipe this place clean
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Your time is tick, tick, ticking away
Ticking away
Lyrics submitted by not_for_real, edited by Loliam
The Warning Lyrics as written by Trent Reznor
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
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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”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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
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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.
sorry i accidentally deleted what came after that but..
the lines above can still be in regards to the presence and the fact that it was the presence that actually ended it all. so when zero-sum states:
"They're starting to open up the sky, they're starting to reach down through. It feels like we're living in that split second of a car crash. And time is slowing down, and if we'd only had a little more time than this,"
Everyone's finally realizing that the world's problems with each other was unnecessary because it would just bring destruction. The Beginning of the End can be used as the intro to the storyline. Survivalism, Capital G, and Meet Your Master can be "the body of the essay" that explains to us how we are adding to the end like the uprising of a Demigod and the rebellion of The Resistance. In this case, we wouldn't know that it was coming because we would feel like we Control everything and even a "Warning" like the presence wouldn't scare us because we are so engulfed with ourselves.
Trent can just use the presence in a metaphorical way and compare it to the green house effect, the limited supplies that we will have to deal with, or the constant mini wars that are coming from all over the place.
To wrap it all up In This Twilight and Zero-Sum are the conclusion to this album or story. We are under the impression that the end really did come but because Trent is still going on about a second album to add to Year Zero, this might be the start of something completely different. Like a world after the Presence has restored some kind of balance or honest scare leaving only the innocent behind.