"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.
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
Blood money mercenaries, think you can muscle Wu?
It's a foot race, who can out-hustle who?
Hip hop junkie flunky, monkey see, monkey do
Great minds connect like mobster rings
Sit back, let me do my, Sinatra thing
I'm in the Hip Hop Hall of Fame, on the wall is the plaques
Old ball and chain, I named her Madam X
She love big cannons, sex unprotected
You better respect it, kid, we 'bout to set trip
You get ya neck ripped, eyeballs are scoping
I don't sell crack, I sell dopium
Catch him at the podium, nah, he moving too fast
Professor X, behind the bulletproof glass
You need a Wu pass, a bag of that high
Easy with the flicks, baby, I'm camera shy
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
We might have to 8 Diagram one of y'all MC's
We grind everyday and we hustle for cheese
Got our face on the front of CD's, we off the hook
W.T.C. y'all soft and shook
Y'all not built like the Cuban Linx Clan that get CREAM
And back heads down every time we sing
Give us a hundred grand for a show, let us rock
For more money, more chicks, more private stock
They call me Streetlife, slap the taste
Out ya mug, know ya place, you ain't thug, fix ya face
Throw a slug, catch a case
Meanwhile, beat trial, back on that cash cow
Getting CREAM, however, a street brother know how
Point blank, I'm pulling rank, calling shot, I got bank
Pass the rock, my hand's hot, hit 'em with the showshotter
Peace to my ala mater, Wu-Tang block scholars
Never settle for less, promoters pay us top dollar
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Barney here is down to a feeding dreadlock
Armpit like two Buckwheat's in a headlock
Macy Gray's hair between your leg lock
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
so cross-eyed, when she cry tears roll down her back
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
This shit is strong, god damn, what you got in there?
Over-crowded bamboo bimbo
Chickenhead skeezer crackhead hoodrat
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Ya mother's so cross-eyed, when she cry tears roll down her back
Calabama niggaz all'll quit
Talking that short dick shit
Speak up, no loud speaker but I'm speaking loud
Venacular ass kicking, truth out to a crowd
Shit, they call me the lethal lip
The linguistic, full metal jacket of venacular ballistic
Shooting out at the mouth without Chap or Blistec
Here's a mothafucka, I didn't flunk diaper rash
I'm verbally toxic, metal-piercing, forked, hollow point tongue
Dumb dumb, pow, shot from gattling gums
Hooked on phonics, packing a vicious vocabulary
Malicious, with malice and mayhem
Fuck a dictionary, give me the mic and I'll slay
Them lame and literally poetic symptoms
Pissing me the fuck off, missing me with that shit
I stick a venacular foot so far up in ya ass
You won't be able to pass verbal gas
So far up in ya ass that one of my knees will rise so far above ya head
And you drown of a poetic ass kicking
Leaving lyrical lacerations on your lungs, from a verbal hangnail
That hung on my big toe, as I flow upward
Kicking yo on ya eardrum, you wanna hear some?
Tap dance on ya tonsils, leaving kiwi shoe polish on ya breath
Cavity in ya best rhyme, and the absess on the rest
Call me the proverbial verbal menacing dentist
With the drill, I got lyrical skills
I could perform oral root canals
It's unwise to fuck with me
Kick ya wisdom teeth down ya throat
Leaving you to choke
On where it hurts, unspoken vocals
Tying down ya vocal cord plug your windpipe tight
With toe jamming and ya mothafucking hemmoroids
Fuck the dumb shit
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
Blood money mercenaries, think you can muscle Wu?
It's a foot race, who can out-hustle who?
Hip hop junkie flunky, monkey see, monkey do
Great minds connect like mobster rings
Sit back, let me do my, Sinatra thing
I'm in the Hip Hop Hall of Fame, on the wall is the plaques
Old ball and chain, I named her Madam X
She love big cannons, sex unprotected
You better respect it, kid, we 'bout to set trip
You get ya neck ripped, eyeballs are scoping
I don't sell crack, I sell dopium
Catch him at the podium, nah, he moving too fast
Professor X, behind the bulletproof glass
You need a Wu pass, a bag of that high
Easy with the flicks, baby, I'm camera shy
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
We might have to 8 Diagram one of y'all MC's
We grind everyday and we hustle for cheese
Got our face on the front of CD's, we off the hook
W.T.C. y'all soft and shook
Y'all not built like the Cuban Linx Clan that get CREAM
And back heads down every time we sing
Give us a hundred grand for a show, let us rock
For more money, more chicks, more private stock
They call me Streetlife, slap the taste
Out ya mug, know ya place, you ain't thug, fix ya face
Throw a slug, catch a case
Meanwhile, beat trial, back on that cash cow
Getting CREAM, however, a street brother know how
Point blank, I'm pulling rank, calling shot, I got bank
Pass the rock, my hand's hot, hit 'em with the showshotter
Peace to my ala mater, Wu-Tang block scholars
Never settle for less, promoters pay us top dollar
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (Eastside, Westside)
Get that money, God, keep your sword sharp (1-2-3-4)
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Barney here is down to a feeding dreadlock
Armpit like two Buckwheat's in a headlock
Macy Gray's hair between your leg lock
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
so cross-eyed, when she cry tears roll down her back
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
This shit is strong, god damn, what you got in there?
Over-crowded bamboo bimbo
Chickenhead skeezer crackhead hoodrat
Somebody let the monkeys out the cage
Ya mother's so cross-eyed, when she cry tears roll down her back
Calabama niggaz all'll quit
Talking that short dick shit
Speak up, no loud speaker but I'm speaking loud
Venacular ass kicking, truth out to a crowd
Shit, they call me the lethal lip
The linguistic, full metal jacket of venacular ballistic
Shooting out at the mouth without Chap or Blistec
Here's a mothafucka, I didn't flunk diaper rash
I'm verbally toxic, metal-piercing, forked, hollow point tongue
Dumb dumb, pow, shot from gattling gums
Hooked on phonics, packing a vicious vocabulary
Malicious, with malice and mayhem
Fuck a dictionary, give me the mic and I'll slay
Them lame and literally poetic symptoms
Pissing me the fuck off, missing me with that shit
I stick a venacular foot so far up in ya ass
You won't be able to pass verbal gas
So far up in ya ass that one of my knees will rise so far above ya head
And you drown of a poetic ass kicking
Leaving lyrical lacerations on your lungs, from a verbal hangnail
That hung on my big toe, as I flow upward
Kicking yo on ya eardrum, you wanna hear some?
Tap dance on ya tonsils, leaving kiwi shoe polish on ya breath
Cavity in ya best rhyme, and the absess on the rest
Call me the proverbial verbal menacing dentist
With the drill, I got lyrical skills
I could perform oral root canals
It's unwise to fuck with me
Kick ya wisdom teeth down ya throat
Leaving you to choke
On where it hurts, unspoken vocals
Tying down ya vocal cord plug your windpipe tight
With toe jamming and ya mothafucking hemmoroids
Fuck the dumb shit
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Fast Car
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Worst song Wu Tang ever did