"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.
Your heart is broken
And you don't seem to mind
I guess it happened
A little too many times, too many times
You tried and you've got tired
Those long half-written stories
You held a fire
Right under the snow
They don’t, they don’t
How could they really know, they don’t
They don’t how it really feels
They’re just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see you cry
Do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance
I danced with you, I felt like superstars do
Me and you
We're just like superstars
I was around you
You couldn't really tell
I held you close while
While you drove you just drove into hell, you know
A kind of hurt that binds
A light that loves you blind
And while your feet go
They go deeper in the sand
You wait and drown
You're waving to the crowd, that sits
But they don’t know how it really feels
They're just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see you cry
Do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance for me
Yeah you did that crazy dance
You did that crazy dance for me
Did that crazy dance, did that crazy dance...
'Cause they don't know how it really feels
They’re just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see us cry
Now do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance for me
As I danced with you, I felt like superstars do
Me and you
We're just like superstars
Danced with you, just like superstars do
Me and you
Just like superstars
And you don't seem to mind
I guess it happened
A little too many times, too many times
You tried and you've got tired
Those long half-written stories
You held a fire
Right under the snow
They don’t, they don’t
How could they really know, they don’t
They don’t how it really feels
They’re just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see you cry
Do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance
I danced with you, I felt like superstars do
Me and you
We're just like superstars
I was around you
You couldn't really tell
I held you close while
While you drove you just drove into hell, you know
A kind of hurt that binds
A light that loves you blind
And while your feet go
They go deeper in the sand
You wait and drown
You're waving to the crowd, that sits
But they don’t know how it really feels
They're just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see you cry
Do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance for me
Yeah you did that crazy dance
You did that crazy dance for me
Did that crazy dance, did that crazy dance...
'Cause they don't know how it really feels
They’re just here on holidays
Like (dummies ville) landscapes
How could they see us cry
Now do you remember me
I was the one that held you through
I held the spotlight when you did that crazy dance for me
As I danced with you, I felt like superstars do
Me and you
We're just like superstars
Danced with you, just like superstars do
Me and you
Just like superstars
Lyrics submitted by ieatfrenchfries
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
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
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.
Concordo, Pampas... O Dreams in Colour está espetacular!