"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 eyes look just like bullet holes
it must be all that crying
you haven't learned a thing at all
another helter skelter
moonlight has come and gone
the bloody writings on the wall
Chloroform girl how have you been
don't let me catch you sleeping again
you're only alive because I like you
it's been 3 years since you've seen the sunlight
but I know you're having fun
bound, gagged and chained up in my basement
You look just like a zombie
inches from dead and pretty
with purple flowers in your hair
I hear the angels crying just as the devil smiles
all the little pigs will die tonight
I hear the devil singing the most haunting melodies
I've got this overwhelming feeling of morbid ecstasy coming over me
it must be all that crying
you haven't learned a thing at all
another helter skelter
moonlight has come and gone
the bloody writings on the wall
Chloroform girl how have you been
don't let me catch you sleeping again
you're only alive because I like you
it's been 3 years since you've seen the sunlight
but I know you're having fun
bound, gagged and chained up in my basement
You look just like a zombie
inches from dead and pretty
with purple flowers in your hair
I hear the angels crying just as the devil smiles
all the little pigs will die tonight
I hear the devil singing the most haunting melodies
I've got this overwhelming feeling of morbid ecstasy coming over me
Lyrics submitted by Musikistmacht
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I find these lyrics try to hard to be shocking. But I like the idea.