"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.
[[Spoken: Transmitted.... signals coming through? .....okay. ]]
Echo echo one-nine
Hear the call through fault lines
Smoke signals, old rhymes
Shorted lights in store signs
Spelled in a broken code
Find that it is time to
Breath, build, bend, and refine you
We sky tenants
Give it all but won't give up
Radio soul antennas
Radio to lift spirits
Call sign commando
M.O. is independence
Scream till the walls fall
Dissolve all the limits
Occupied minds
Unemployed skills
Desolation
Worn out
Torn down
Just for now thrill seekers
Slanging
Test tube babies in beakers
Where gun blasts pump straight from the speakers
The system where the
Poor get poorly paid
To hold the ladder
Where the rich get ricocheted
Into the stratosphere
And in between people are rushin' like Vladimir
With medals to make their status clear
Get us out of here
[Chorus: Repeat 2X]
We need heroes
Build them
Don't put your fist up
Fill them
Fight with our hopes and our hearts and our hands
We're the architects of our last stand
There's a war going on for your mind
Those who seek to occupy it will stop at nothing
The battlefield is everywhere
There is no sanctuary
There are no civilians
You have two choices
Surrender or enlist
What kind of person are you
Always the first to argue
Or never down to stick your neck out
'Cause it hurts you far too much
To see your rep suffer
Set you up a buffer
Well neither is enough for us cut from a tougher brand
Of duct tape the propaganda's stuck on us like sock pajamas
Spread like a virus
Through accepted thoughts and proper manners
But off the cameras
Somethings simmering across the land
About to bubble up
And knock the lids off of the pots and pans
We are non stop juggernauts
Stomp ziggurats
Spit manifestos
By terabytes and gigawatts
Shock paradigms
Give sense to a score
Throw thoughts through the sky
Activate twenty more
In these high and dry times
Expectorate on dogma
Pragmatic sycophants
Divide and conquer
We build bridges offer
Hard work and prosper
As hand made heroes brought to you by no sponsors
[Chorus: Repeat 4X]
All free minds to the front
All free minds to the front
We call upon women
We call upon children
We call upon the handicapped
The infirmed
The weak of heart
We need your courage
Your dedication
Your passion
Your conviction
Gather up your platinum
Melt it down
Gather up your gold
Melt it down
Gather up your silver
Your bronze
Your aluminum
Melt it down
Melt it down
Melt it down
Echo echo one-nine
Hear the call through fault lines
Smoke signals, old rhymes
Shorted lights in store signs
Spelled in a broken code
Find that it is time to
Breath, build, bend, and refine you
We sky tenants
Give it all but won't give up
Radio soul antennas
Radio to lift spirits
Call sign commando
M.O. is independence
Scream till the walls fall
Dissolve all the limits
Occupied minds
Unemployed skills
Desolation
Worn out
Torn down
Just for now thrill seekers
Slanging
Test tube babies in beakers
Where gun blasts pump straight from the speakers
The system where the
Poor get poorly paid
To hold the ladder
Where the rich get ricocheted
Into the stratosphere
And in between people are rushin' like Vladimir
With medals to make their status clear
Get us out of here
[Chorus: Repeat 2X]
We need heroes
Build them
Don't put your fist up
Fill them
Fight with our hopes and our hearts and our hands
We're the architects of our last stand
There's a war going on for your mind
Those who seek to occupy it will stop at nothing
The battlefield is everywhere
There is no sanctuary
There are no civilians
You have two choices
Surrender or enlist
What kind of person are you
Always the first to argue
Or never down to stick your neck out
'Cause it hurts you far too much
To see your rep suffer
Set you up a buffer
Well neither is enough for us cut from a tougher brand
Of duct tape the propaganda's stuck on us like sock pajamas
Spread like a virus
Through accepted thoughts and proper manners
But off the cameras
Somethings simmering across the land
About to bubble up
And knock the lids off of the pots and pans
We are non stop juggernauts
Stomp ziggurats
Spit manifestos
By terabytes and gigawatts
Shock paradigms
Give sense to a score
Throw thoughts through the sky
Activate twenty more
In these high and dry times
Expectorate on dogma
Pragmatic sycophants
Divide and conquer
We build bridges offer
Hard work and prosper
As hand made heroes brought to you by no sponsors
[Chorus: Repeat 4X]
All free minds to the front
All free minds to the front
We call upon women
We call upon children
We call upon the handicapped
The infirmed
The weak of heart
We need your courage
Your dedication
Your passion
Your conviction
Gather up your platinum
Melt it down
Gather up your gold
Melt it down
Gather up your silver
Your bronze
Your aluminum
Melt it down
Melt it down
Melt it down
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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"
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
This song is about Hitler, or at least a dictator that is taking over the world