"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.
Oh boy, when you're gone, you are gone
Those nights you wander all night
You won't get to relive them
Or even to explain them
To your next of kin
They come one,
After the other, after the other
Just like herring bone
Oh, oh, oh oh
Way out there where the tide meets the tide
Those nights you'd get so quiet
You won't get to enjoy them
Or even to explain them
To your next of kin
They come one,
After the other, after the other
Just like herring bone
Oh, oh, oh oh
And I know you like herring bone
Yeah, I know you like herring bone
Through the cold you've held on with
The one you went to went to war with
The only word you can't explain
Those nights you wander all night
You won't get to relive them
Or even to explain them
To your next of kin
They come one,
After the other, after the other
Just like herring bone
Oh, oh, oh oh
Way out there where the tide meets the tide
Those nights you'd get so quiet
You won't get to enjoy them
Or even to explain them
To your next of kin
They come one,
After the other, after the other
Just like herring bone
Oh, oh, oh oh
And I know you like herring bone
Yeah, I know you like herring bone
Through the cold you've held on with
The one you went to went to war with
The only word you can't explain
Lyrics submitted by kstemz
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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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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.
I'm guessing on the true meaning of 'herring bone' here. It's most commonly known as a pattern in fabric, or a seating arrangement, etc. In the song he mentions 'when the tide hits the tide'... the herringbone attern can actually look like waves. This fits since he says 'I know you like herring bone' and he seems to be talking to someone about how much they like this pattern, or these patterns of waves. They can be mesmerizing.
The part that really throws me off is 'you wont get to enjoy them, or even to explain them to your next of kin'. It definitely seems logical to say he died.
'Through the cold, you held on with, the one you went to war with' seems to imply that these 'waves'/herringbone he loved provided some kind of comfort/meaning to his life when things got tough.
Lastly the cryptic 'the only word you can't explain' line could mean, roughly, that although he holds onto and loves this 'herring bone', he cannot explain why.
What this song means to me, is that people often enjoy or love being in nature. They say that putting a picture of trees, the ocean, etc. in a depressed man's cubicle can make him feel a hundred times better. nature is filled with patterns, like 'herringbone'. Despite not knowing exactly why certain patterns and things give us pleasure, they are still important to us. Some people live to travel, hike, etc. and it gives their life meaning.
To me, the song is almost ironic, because herringbone itself is kind of an ugly pattern. You could say someone who really loves herringbone has bad taste. But that's just my interpretation. : )