"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.
Through space I shall roam
From the base to my home
In my rocket I soar in a daze
Blastin the asteroid field
I’m trying not to get killed
I’m dodging Mars bars and old Milky Ways
This planet’s stinky
I should call up Enki
And say “What were you thinkin’?
Look at the mess you made!”
Disposable humans that you made from a monkey
This planet has gone to the apes.
Planet X marks the spot!
So I’m ditchin’ and hitchin’ a ride
I got my Sitchin guide
He’s my Nibiru guru
To endure three thousand, six hundred years
Is far too long, I’m gone
I ‘m knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door.
Planet X marks the spot!
Walk through the gate
(Ea)
Welcome the creature you made
(Ea)
Embrace your disgrace
(Ea)
You took your pinches of clay
You made us, raised us in days
And then you threw us away.
And now you’re scouting with Greys
And simply counting the days
Down till you cruise back by and blow us away.
And we dance.
Blissful unawareness as we dance.
Planet X marks the spot!
From the base to my home
In my rocket I soar in a daze
Blastin the asteroid field
I’m trying not to get killed
I’m dodging Mars bars and old Milky Ways
This planet’s stinky
I should call up Enki
And say “What were you thinkin’?
Look at the mess you made!”
Disposable humans that you made from a monkey
This planet has gone to the apes.
Planet X marks the spot!
So I’m ditchin’ and hitchin’ a ride
I got my Sitchin guide
He’s my Nibiru guru
To endure three thousand, six hundred years
Is far too long, I’m gone
I ‘m knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door.
Planet X marks the spot!
Walk through the gate
(Ea)
Welcome the creature you made
(Ea)
Embrace your disgrace
(Ea)
You took your pinches of clay
You made us, raised us in days
And then you threw us away.
And now you’re scouting with Greys
And simply counting the days
Down till you cruise back by and blow us away.
And we dance.
Blissful unawareness as we dance.
Planet X marks the spot!
Lyrics submitted by serengold
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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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.
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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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Page
Ed Sheeran
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
Zecharia Sitchin was an ancient-astronaut theorist. "Planet X" or "Nibiru", our solar system's 12th planet, is what he calls the homeworld of the advanced alien race that created humans to serve as slaves. (It's not attested in real astronomy.)
@seahen we haven't even counted 12 planets yet