"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.
Tonight is colder than the fingernails of bitches
Buckled belts on angry men
I was riding when the onslaught happened
I said: "Here we go again,"
There was paper blowing all around the ditches
Calling me to find a pen
And when I went into the pen shop
I almost stayed too long
If you stop to think what color ink to write your scriptures in
Your vision will be gone
And every time I bear a vision of you
I admit I try to stop it
But mothers can not carry babies past their due
So, why deny if I'm a prophet?
I see you waiting like an impatient sun
Knowing the moon will soon eclipse it
I see greatness in yr future
And then I see y'll never glimpse it
Before y're yanked away
And though I shiver for all the unknown painters
Who complete their masterpieces on the undersides of rocks
And every day there are fishermen who wake at dawn
To find their boats are gone
The ragged ropes still trailing off the docks
I'm waiting like an impatient son
Knowing his momma's gonna leave
When you see death written on a living face before you
you just get on with it
'Cause what are supposed to grieve
The night is teeming with the bloody teeth of traitors
Hear it beating with the plastic hearts of liars
The toxic fumes will keep the godly ones away
Were they thrown into the fires
But you are waiting like an impatient sun
Waiting for its turn to shine
And like the sun we're going to miss you
Your brightness
When you leave us all behind
Buckled belts on angry men
I was riding when the onslaught happened
I said: "Here we go again,"
There was paper blowing all around the ditches
Calling me to find a pen
And when I went into the pen shop
I almost stayed too long
If you stop to think what color ink to write your scriptures in
Your vision will be gone
And every time I bear a vision of you
I admit I try to stop it
But mothers can not carry babies past their due
So, why deny if I'm a prophet?
I see you waiting like an impatient sun
Knowing the moon will soon eclipse it
I see greatness in yr future
And then I see y'll never glimpse it
Before y're yanked away
And though I shiver for all the unknown painters
Who complete their masterpieces on the undersides of rocks
And every day there are fishermen who wake at dawn
To find their boats are gone
The ragged ropes still trailing off the docks
I'm waiting like an impatient son
Knowing his momma's gonna leave
When you see death written on a living face before you
you just get on with it
'Cause what are supposed to grieve
The night is teeming with the bloody teeth of traitors
Hear it beating with the plastic hearts of liars
The toxic fumes will keep the godly ones away
Were they thrown into the fires
But you are waiting like an impatient sun
Waiting for its turn to shine
And like the sun we're going to miss you
Your brightness
When you leave us all behind
Lyrics submitted by frinkianz
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