"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 stood before the glittery borders of new radius
in search of the fabled city of mud and crushed velvet,
what i found was a gutter where the love of entertainment
meets the lust for blood and demerits
cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, collar pop jolly roger, die motherf**ker die, apache on the ship shape and bristol fashion snuck a jammy through the red tape and tip toe past him. worm teeth grinding feverishly below, as little organic hacksaws eager to feed and grow, so when it's blackhawk over the glass walk, they surface up through the cash crops with clippers for your belly-up mascots, and never dine alone, meanwhile back at sea level it was home by home zone for zone, bloom county's homeless riot for home ownership, i hope you put gas in the motor-home and know the roads, i studied with the finest combs stuck under my thumb as opposed to the loaded nose who pray armageddon is numb and that's unevenly rendered to those who grew up thinking faith was the surrender of reason but not a reason to surrender. catch the liberty fires catalog, 40 torched orchids and citronella for algernon, don and vagabond alike repent, this shit should have gone "beta burns babylon, the end".
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
nothing says charm like an armored car taking the clone-farm 'tards to the arms bizarre, we were the homemade marker makers born to pour the marsh ink into right guard parts and march through the gauntlet of car alarms, no harps, no delusions of losing with something prettier than ash around the metacarpal still clutching the teddy bears, we can run with scissors through the city fair or situate the nuzzle with the subtle art of splitting hairs, double park the shuttle, some will arc the funneled cutty sark where budding narcs target the gushing heart in the muddy clarks, these are the vices of the p-noid bastards who will chew whatever tablets blur the axioms fastest, crews lose lunches by the hundreds, lose electricity, lose gas, phone, plumbing, humming keep your mouth closed, keep your cows cloned, go, i am the pulse of this fucking town, homes, no. my what a convenient embargo, at least i'll always know which side of the gun i'm supposed to buy the farm from, the too-far-gone kicks still in the box, fix still in the pill in his sock ,chilling, gill in the slop, and a million watch gideon scribes, but once the arc honor pussy and bribes, the animals will divide and that's a win for the garish who keep charity in the parish while profiting off the lack of a marriage amongst the classes.
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
the mobile infantry is so postal, coast into the quotient provoking the local pistol pete, choking his liberty and justice quotas and cloaking his folk in smithereens, smokey little pile of bloody pulp and co-dependencies. dopey no surrender bender in effect, sole defenders of the longest night new york had never slept, and there were jumping jacks and whistlers over christmas, like rockets from the crypt spilling the festive morning beverage of your preference, i step in hog heaven, stoney with no weapons, pissing on TelePrompTers, selling megaphones to hecklers, who broadcast 80 million versions of the sermon for that one indisputable masterpiece before the curtains, pale arcadian moon, high definition flat plasma, imax city-wide transfer, artificial einstein-rosen out the tenement, ease into the xanadu, let it hammer the tension out, i'm talking cool, calm, dominant phenomenal, monitor face to the wall opposite. u.f.o.'s and locusts sing the same old song while the weathermen get retarded as the day is long
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
in search of the fabled city of mud and crushed velvet,
what i found was a gutter where the love of entertainment
meets the lust for blood and demerits
cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, collar pop jolly roger, die motherf**ker die, apache on the ship shape and bristol fashion snuck a jammy through the red tape and tip toe past him. worm teeth grinding feverishly below, as little organic hacksaws eager to feed and grow, so when it's blackhawk over the glass walk, they surface up through the cash crops with clippers for your belly-up mascots, and never dine alone, meanwhile back at sea level it was home by home zone for zone, bloom county's homeless riot for home ownership, i hope you put gas in the motor-home and know the roads, i studied with the finest combs stuck under my thumb as opposed to the loaded nose who pray armageddon is numb and that's unevenly rendered to those who grew up thinking faith was the surrender of reason but not a reason to surrender. catch the liberty fires catalog, 40 torched orchids and citronella for algernon, don and vagabond alike repent, this shit should have gone "beta burns babylon, the end".
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
nothing says charm like an armored car taking the clone-farm 'tards to the arms bizarre, we were the homemade marker makers born to pour the marsh ink into right guard parts and march through the gauntlet of car alarms, no harps, no delusions of losing with something prettier than ash around the metacarpal still clutching the teddy bears, we can run with scissors through the city fair or situate the nuzzle with the subtle art of splitting hairs, double park the shuttle, some will arc the funneled cutty sark where budding narcs target the gushing heart in the muddy clarks, these are the vices of the p-noid bastards who will chew whatever tablets blur the axioms fastest, crews lose lunches by the hundreds, lose electricity, lose gas, phone, plumbing, humming keep your mouth closed, keep your cows cloned, go, i am the pulse of this fucking town, homes, no. my what a convenient embargo, at least i'll always know which side of the gun i'm supposed to buy the farm from, the too-far-gone kicks still in the box, fix still in the pill in his sock ,chilling, gill in the slop, and a million watch gideon scribes, but once the arc honor pussy and bribes, the animals will divide and that's a win for the garish who keep charity in the parish while profiting off the lack of a marriage amongst the classes.
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
the mobile infantry is so postal, coast into the quotient provoking the local pistol pete, choking his liberty and justice quotas and cloaking his folk in smithereens, smokey little pile of bloody pulp and co-dependencies. dopey no surrender bender in effect, sole defenders of the longest night new york had never slept, and there were jumping jacks and whistlers over christmas, like rockets from the crypt spilling the festive morning beverage of your preference, i step in hog heaven, stoney with no weapons, pissing on TelePrompTers, selling megaphones to hecklers, who broadcast 80 million versions of the sermon for that one indisputable masterpiece before the curtains, pale arcadian moon, high definition flat plasma, imax city-wide transfer, artificial einstein-rosen out the tenement, ease into the xanadu, let it hammer the tension out, i'm talking cool, calm, dominant phenomenal, monitor face to the wall opposite. u.f.o.'s and locusts sing the same old song while the weathermen get retarded as the day is long
and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said...
(kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)
and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...
Lyrics submitted by three74mhz
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Fast Car
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The Night We Met
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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."
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
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,
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Anybody who can decipher any Aesop Rock song is a genius.
Just loling at the reference to Farenheit 9/11... "hey guys, talk radio and tv news has all sorts of political bias, by the way watch this Michael Moore film which is 90% him making up and distorting facts as much as possible." The bullshit comes from both sides, my friend.
The actual reason I wanted to post: On the kill the television line, I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be sarcastic. The point is that talk radio wants to "kill the television" news, but most of them are pulling the same nonsense that T.V. news is doing, just through a different medium.
On the terms of "Bristol fashion" I think you have it mostly right, but I think you are missing the double reference to Bristol Palin.
There is actually quite a bit less politics in most Aesop songs than most would think, but None Shall Pass is definitely his most political album.
This song is about the news and how it was used to mess up american opinions / "knowledge" during the iraq war, which was about oil. You can't deny it, especially the part about september 11th: "The longest night new york had never slept"
first, the intro talks about how we came into there by creating the image of somebody surveying "the glittery borders [of a] new radius, in search of a city of mud (duh, middle east, baghdad, formerly babylon, on the floodplains of mesopotamia) and crushed velvet (meaning fancyness)" teh rest is self explanatory in this part.
(gotta warn:the lyrics posted on this site for now are kinda off, listen yourselves) the song kicks in talking about "cutters of the pie" or, americans coming in with their collars-popped (being cocky), waving jolly rogers (the skull and crossbows pirates flew when doing piratey things). "snuck a jimmy (not a jammy, a jimmy is what pro car theives open your car with) through the red tape in Bristol fashion" ..bristol being a reference to a british medieval (and still existing) town, and red tape is an aphorism for "political barriers". The british reference may be calling us 1800s british colonizers or medieval christian crusaders coming illegally / for questionable reasons to Iraq. the rest of this verse has similar themes, mentions citronella for algernon, which is a reference to the book "flowers for algernon" about a scientist playing god with a lab rat in a maze, and citronella is not only mosquito repellant but also rat poison, I figured I'd talk about this part since it's the title of the song, and it is a metaphor about how we poison the middle east, which is already a lab rat we've been putting in a political maze and playing God in a way since the Gulf War.
The rest of the song is similar, more on the side of making fun of americans / the army (the whole paragraph starting with coming in in an armored car to the arms bazzar (which lyrically is amazing, the buzzy words and the way he says them conjure up imagery of a big stupid hummer coming in). Clone-tards are soldiers, still clutching their teddy bears, etc. "Babylon burns beta till the end" is an amazing line, babylon as I said is one of the first cities in the world, if you remember history.. and while we're there it "burns beta" - beta is a stage of development in a project like rebuilding an online website that comes after the first stage (alpha), it is the stage where you implement the design and watch out for any kinks / things going wrong.. remember facebook beta? ok. In this context it is a reference to how we tried to implement our "democratic" system in "babylon" and its a project burning in its beta stage until the end.. how we dont really have a good exit plan, etc.
this song is one of aesop's ..if not the number one for me.. best uses of complicated lyrics and references, and awesome messages. It is not simply about Iraq, it is about the media, and here's where I explain, for those still with me, that..
"and when the radio stars climbed up out of the floors to murder the medium that shot 'em 30 years before they said... (kill the television. kill the television. kill the television. typical, isn't it?)" in this part he talks about talk radio hosts coming up to denounce the television, which killed the medium of talk radio, which is something that kinda happened when it became more clear pop news channels like fox were just that: news channels, not journalism... journalism being reporting of the truth, the news being an entertaining way to view the truth that can easily be shaped by biases and political ties with network leaders, etc.
this song is not too hard, and well worth looking up any referrences you don't understand. In general, you can check out that movie "farenheit 9/11" if you dont understand what Im talking about or think I sound like a conspiracy theorist / idiot who wants to tell you all about their political views.
you dont sound like an idiot.<br /> that made total sense.
wow. great review. i had a similar interpretation but there is no way i could have put it into words as beautifully as you just did. its good to see some intelligent aesop rock fans :)
Fox being extreme conservative, whilst Michael Moore being extreme liberal. You're looking at it from one angle, I like to view things from both perspectives.
The "kill television" voice sort of sounds like KRS-One
I think this song is about hip-hop and rap.
If you want to get technical hip-hop was created 30 years ago and "future is so bright" might mean where hip-hop now is.
Also about the "kill television, typical isn't it" is how everyone on TV sounds the same.
Otherwise a KICK ASS SONG!
^Thank you sir :)
-Kimo (though, I haven't started trying to figure this one out yet, lol)
While reading this, I Think I got the song meaning, Citronella, as we know is that stuff that keeps mosquitoes away. The term "Biter" is defined in the comments for commencement at the obedience academy as someone who is stealing other people's sounds and style in the hip hop business. I kind of joined this together, could be wrong, but it has a chance of being just as right as the next guess, Citronella is used to keep the biters away.
its a catch 22, even independent news sources are biased, and the same self proclaimed rebellious pioneers of truth saying "kill television" force their ideas on you. Fox is fucking evil tho. AMEN
Its also about how much freedom we give up to live lives of comfort "and when the cutters of the pie throw your summers in the sky, no love lost baby the future is so bright...", Its about giving up the fight to let the "pie cutters" decide for you. The give and the take, you put your future and your money into the hands of a politician and they cut most of the pie to put into their own plates, and throw your summer (freedom) to the sky, no love lost its all good, they ensure a better tomorow for a shitty today (the better tomorow never comes).
I think a lot of the deciphering of Aes lyrics is what the person wants it to be, that's the beauty of music. A lot of his are either interpreted as anti-mainstream rap or anti politics simply because this is what "pops" when some people think about Aesop Rock.