"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.
I wanted something
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
Like Saturn's rings
An icy loop around me
Too hard to hold
Lash out first
At all the things we don't like
Or understand
[Chorus]
And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed
Are you beginning to get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out?
No one knows what this fight's about
The answered phone
The lonely sound of your voice
Frozen in time
I only need
The compass that you gave me
To guide me on
[Chorus]
Are you beginning to get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out?
And no one knows what this fight's about
It's so thrilling but also wrong
Don't have to prove that you are so strong
'Cause I can carry you on my back
After our enemies attack
I tried to tell you before I left
But I was screaming under my breath
You are the only thing that makes sense
Just ignore all this present tense
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
Like Saturn's rings
An icy loop around me
Too hard to hold
Lash out first
At all the things we don't like
Or understand
[Chorus]
And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed
Are you beginning to get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out?
No one knows what this fight's about
The answered phone
The lonely sound of your voice
Frozen in time
I only need
The compass that you gave me
To guide me on
[Chorus]
Are you beginning to get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out?
And no one knows what this fight's about
It's so thrilling but also wrong
Don't have to prove that you are so strong
'Cause I can carry you on my back
After our enemies attack
I tried to tell you before I left
But I was screaming under my breath
You are the only thing that makes sense
Just ignore all this present tense
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Little Feat
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Amazing
Ed Sheeran
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I really enjoy this song. The line, And it's beginning to get to me // That I know more of the stars and sea // Than I do of what's in your head // Barely touching in our cold bed. Sortof reminds me of how easy it is to get sucked into the things of grandiosity, and forget what we ought to value. I think that the couple in the song don't drift too far apart. They are only in the middle of a desert.