"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.
Forever I'll enjoy you undertaking
Come to see you every day now if I can
Is it not the time for everybody?
I still wake on the fields of regret
There is something to this dream we're all involved in
Can I see it, can I say it may exist
Why then don't the night show really matters
If we dwell in the fields of regret
What horror must invade the mind
When the approaching judge shall find
What sinful deeds from all mankind
With death and nature in surprise
Behold the wretched sinners rise
To meet the judge's searching eyes
And when the doomed no more can flee
From the flames of misery
Assist me while I die
Wander through those ever thoughts though if imagined
But come down on it's so easy to resist
Rest me, hide my years upon the planet.
Sound another, no part over, won't forget
When we laugh at the fields of regret.
Come to see you every day now if I can
Is it not the time for everybody?
I still wake on the fields of regret
There is something to this dream we're all involved in
Can I see it, can I say it may exist
Why then don't the night show really matters
If we dwell in the fields of regret
What horror must invade the mind
When the approaching judge shall find
What sinful deeds from all mankind
With death and nature in surprise
Behold the wretched sinners rise
To meet the judge's searching eyes
And when the doomed no more can flee
From the flames of misery
Assist me while I die
Wander through those ever thoughts though if imagined
But come down on it's so easy to resist
Rest me, hide my years upon the planet.
Sound another, no part over, won't forget
When we laugh at the fields of regret.
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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"
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.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
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.
This is one of the only good songs on "Pretties For You". One time I was listening to this going through a car wash, and that back-and-forth sound in the middle of the song went along with the things cleaning the car.