"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.
You can't quit until you try
You can't live until you die
You can't learn to tell the truth until you learn to lie
Can't breathe until you choke
You gotta laugh when you're the joke
There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
I know some things that you don't
I've done things that you won't
There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home
I was waiting for my hearse
What came next was so much worse
It took a funeral to make me feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful.
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
You can't live until you die
You can't learn to tell the truth until you learn to lie
Can't breathe until you choke
You gotta laugh when you're the joke
There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
I know some things that you don't
I've done things that you won't
There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home
I was waiting for my hearse
What came next was so much worse
It took a funeral to make me feel alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful.
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Alive
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Just open your eyes
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
Will you swear on your life
That no one will cry at my funeral?
Lyrics submitted by UnholySoldier
Life Is Beautiful Lyrics as written by James Michael Darren Jay Ashba
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
This is about changing ones self destructive ways. He is saying you cant be happy when you seek out only bad things and/or linger over the things that cannot be changed. He says to look towards thingws with a different mindset to find the beauty and reason in life
I agree with loudchild. Pretty much every line in the song is meant literally. He thought he was living, but it was only after he actually died that he realized what living was. My favorite part is the line, "I was waiting for my hearse, but what came next was so much worse." He was actually dead, pretty much just waiting for his funeral, but he got dragged back and forced to face his problems. And realizing that he needed to change, and the struggle of changing itself, was worse than death for him. But thank goodness he did, because he's turned his life around and changed a lot of lives as a result.
nikki sixx is like really hott and it one of the best bassist eveA
This is such an intense song, it gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. James' voice is just perfect for this song with this meaning. It obviously is self-explanitory if you sit down and read the lyrics. When the tough gets going...you remind yourself that life is beautiful. If that made sense. I don't know. It's just that, he's saying that you don't really see the full potential of life until you were put in a situation that there's no choice except living or going on to something else, whatever is after this. Just like what loudchild said up there about Nikki's heroin overdose.
That's what I say.
Nikki Sixx is beyond a rock legend. He is absolutely inspirational, and this song just furthers that. This song is about hitting the bottom and picking it all back up, because life is a gift. The story is amazing, and the entire soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful.
For anyone who hasn't read it, I recommend buying this book. It was amazing.
this song has to deal with the depths of heroin addictions at its best. it tells you "you cant quit until you try, you cant live until you die, you cant learn to tell the truth until you learn to lie". later in the song it tells you how it can take a death of yourself or of someone close to you to make you realize "life is beautiful". this song tells you greatly of a tale of how a heroin addiction like a roller coaster spiraling, in some out of control frenzy.
nikki sixx = rock god. amazing song, awesome story
it's saying sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can get back up & truly enjoy life.
Can't wait for this c.d. and book im going to read a chapter and then listen to the song after the chapter can't wait, really!!!
I agree with SKYLINES. It's becoming another alleviation song to me (: