"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 am merely the product
Of the life that I've lived
An amalgam of sorrows
And the wisdom they give
But the weight has grown heavy
And its dragging me down
It's so hard not to sink now
But I don't want to drown
CHORUS
I'm damaged
But somehow I've managed
This far
But I don't know if I can find my way back home
I'm damaged
But somehow I've managed
For now
But I don't think I can face this on my own
There is beauty in hardship
There are poems in grief
There are trials we must go through
Though they may shake our beliefs
But I don't know how I got here
Lost in the cynical dusk
Set adrift in the worry
That I've no one to trust
(CHORUS)
If to suffer is holy
I'll take my share of the pain
I can swim through this sadness
If there's something to gain
I can reach for the surface
And try to pull myself free
But the last thing I want is
To drag you down here with me
(CHORUS)
Of the life that I've lived
An amalgam of sorrows
And the wisdom they give
But the weight has grown heavy
And its dragging me down
It's so hard not to sink now
But I don't want to drown
CHORUS
I'm damaged
But somehow I've managed
This far
But I don't know if I can find my way back home
I'm damaged
But somehow I've managed
For now
But I don't think I can face this on my own
There is beauty in hardship
There are poems in grief
There are trials we must go through
Though they may shake our beliefs
But I don't know how I got here
Lost in the cynical dusk
Set adrift in the worry
That I've no one to trust
(CHORUS)
If to suffer is holy
I'll take my share of the pain
I can swim through this sadness
If there's something to gain
I can reach for the surface
And try to pull myself free
But the last thing I want is
To drag you down here with me
(CHORUS)
Lyrics submitted by fauxfoxx
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Fast Car
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Yo La Tengo
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Very conflicting points of view in this song, which fits with the internal suffering he is going through and describing.
It seems as if the main character is just a shell at this point, he feels so horrible, like a monster, like nobody will truly love him and respect him.
In a nutshell, I think he's been through a painful experience which has stripped him of his identity, maybe he changed for someone who turned out to hurt him a great deal, and he's left with nothing, and no way of finding his way back to his old self, because that person is long gone.
And now he's stuck in conflict and turmoil. He wants to die, but the glimmer of hope that it will get better someday is keeping him alive.