"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.
sometimes i claim to know a guy but i can't tell you what his hands look like.
guess who's coming to dinner.
gnashville. never in the night.
never in the night when the knot grows tighter than fingers can untie
and all the last half dammed rivers have gone dry
does the cock crow thrice until someone is denied
or the morning comes
you wonder will you ever get your shit together
what is that a leather sofa and a feather in an old fur hat
fake tat lost in a box of cracker jacks
practicing your plane wreck face in a first class lav
(that's what the ghost of someone's dad might say)
when they come calling, i won't go calm
there is no palm or divine mitt
with which to hold one's pit
or seperate the human race from its enviroment
no scattered ashes loosely gather asking where the fire went
we're left with half truth psalms
in an indecypherable scrawl in some vague extinct language
ancient ink dull, almost vanished on some old brittle scroll
(that's what the ghost of someone's dad might say)
guess who's coming to dinner.
gnashville. never in the night.
never in the night when the knot grows tighter than fingers can untie
and all the last half dammed rivers have gone dry
does the cock crow thrice until someone is denied
or the morning comes
you wonder will you ever get your shit together
what is that a leather sofa and a feather in an old fur hat
fake tat lost in a box of cracker jacks
practicing your plane wreck face in a first class lav
(that's what the ghost of someone's dad might say)
when they come calling, i won't go calm
there is no palm or divine mitt
with which to hold one's pit
or seperate the human race from its enviroment
no scattered ashes loosely gather asking where the fire went
we're left with half truth psalms
in an indecypherable scrawl in some vague extinct language
ancient ink dull, almost vanished on some old brittle scroll
(that's what the ghost of someone's dad might say)
Lyrics submitted by oh ok
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half damned rivers.