"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.
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond the questions.
Clambering for the scraps
In the shatter of us collapsed.
It cuts me with every could-have-been.
Pain on pain on play, repeating
With the backup makeshift life in waiting.
Everybody says that time heals everything.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
There's nothing to see here now,
Turning the sign around;
We're closed to the Earth 'til further notice.
A stumbling cliched case
Crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles
An all-out one, only one street-level miracle.
I'll be a an out-and-out, born again from none more cynical.
Everybody says that time heals everything
Oh in the end.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
And sit here cold?
We'll be long gone by then.
And lackluster in dust we lay
Around old magazines.
Fluorescent lighting sets the scene
For all we could and should be being
In the one life that we've got.
In the one life that we've got.
Everybody says that time heals everything.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
We sit here
Just going to wait it out
Sit here cold
Just going to threat it out
Wait it out.
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond the questions.
Clambering for the scraps
In the shatter of us collapsed.
It cuts me with every could-have-been.
Pain on pain on play, repeating
With the backup makeshift life in waiting.
Everybody says that time heals everything.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
There's nothing to see here now,
Turning the sign around;
We're closed to the Earth 'til further notice.
A stumbling cliched case
Crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles
An all-out one, only one street-level miracle.
I'll be a an out-and-out, born again from none more cynical.
Everybody says that time heals everything
Oh in the end.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
And sit here cold?
We'll be long gone by then.
And lackluster in dust we lay
Around old magazines.
Fluorescent lighting sets the scene
For all we could and should be being
In the one life that we've got.
In the one life that we've got.
Everybody says that time heals everything.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?
We sit here
Just going to wait it out
Sit here cold
Just going to threat it out
Wait it out.
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To me, this song is about a broken relationship.
She doesn't want to let go because she doesn't know what good could happen in the future and doesn't want to give up that possibility.
They say that time heals everything, and she wonders if it will eventually heal the relationship by waiting it out. However, if they wait for that to happen, what will they do to fill the hole while they wait? They're closed off from the Earth (other people) because they are choosing to stay together and hope it gets better with time, but she fears they'll waste their entire lives hoping it will get better.