"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.
All I had hoped for
I kept inside your car
The rabbit in the barn
Most of all I wait
I wait beside the door
I wait beside the door
Oh, I was wrong
Trembling in the cage
I was diamonds in the rage
In seven hours
I consider death
And your father called to yell at me
You little boy, you little boy
Found out you cheated me
I ran behind the barn and cut my hand somehow
Blood in the meadow lark
I punched your ears instead
I punched you in the head
You only laughed and laughed and laughed
How I was wrong, tingling from the kill
You tickle me until
You devil bird, you evil still
I slept on my arms, sleeping on the sill
I was sleeping in the room with you
You little boy, you little boy
How could you run from me now
The loneliest chime in the house
The loneliest chime in the house
You let it out, you let it out
Come to your Calvary still
I'm bleeding and breaking until
I'm bleeding in spite of my warmth for you
It bruised and bruised my will
Come to me now with your pains
The breathing inside of the rage
You touched me inside of my cage
Beneath my shirt your hands embraced me
Come to me feathered and frayed
For I am the ugliest prey
For I am the ugliest prey
Beyond the reckless, reckless raise
You said you'd wait for me
Down by the tannery creek
Far out by the clothesline
Where we used to kiss behind the sheets
Wrapped in a blanket of red
The owl and the tanager sat
The owl and the tanager said
One waits until the hour is death
I kept inside your car
The rabbit in the barn
Most of all I wait
I wait beside the door
I wait beside the door
Oh, I was wrong
Trembling in the cage
I was diamonds in the rage
In seven hours
I consider death
And your father called to yell at me
You little boy, you little boy
Found out you cheated me
I ran behind the barn and cut my hand somehow
Blood in the meadow lark
I punched your ears instead
I punched you in the head
You only laughed and laughed and laughed
How I was wrong, tingling from the kill
You tickle me until
You devil bird, you evil still
I slept on my arms, sleeping on the sill
I was sleeping in the room with you
You little boy, you little boy
How could you run from me now
The loneliest chime in the house
The loneliest chime in the house
You let it out, you let it out
Come to your Calvary still
I'm bleeding and breaking until
I'm bleeding in spite of my warmth for you
It bruised and bruised my will
Come to me now with your pains
The breathing inside of the rage
You touched me inside of my cage
Beneath my shirt your hands embraced me
Come to me feathered and frayed
For I am the ugliest prey
For I am the ugliest prey
Beyond the reckless, reckless raise
You said you'd wait for me
Down by the tannery creek
Far out by the clothesline
Where we used to kiss behind the sheets
Wrapped in a blanket of red
The owl and the tanager sat
The owl and the tanager said
One waits until the hour is death
Lyrics submitted by yeahoksufjan
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
A predator/prey metaphor for an asymmetrical relationship. Sufjan is the tanager, the prey. His sheltered inexperience burdens him with a needy intensity. An easy victim for the more worldly owl.
It comes to a head when the owl cheats, stands him up. The tanager rages, ponders suicide, makes a half-hearted attempt. Opts instead for physical confrontation when the owl appears. Is disgusted by his own helplessness. The owl toys with him, laughs off his anger, they wrestle…into sex, but not reconciliation. Not until the owl acknowledges his reciprocal need does the tanager relent, this time on his own terms. He is still prey, still needy, but has asserted himself, acknowledged his own worth.
Sounds like a crappy but necessary experience.
I give my humble interpretations of many Sufjan Stevens songs here: mindthatknowsitself.tumblr.com