"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 was feeling uninspired so i got in my car
drove around about an hour but i didn't get too far
i never left these same old streets or this the same old path
i asked the same old questions that i always ask
like, "why do i keep wasting so much gas?"
so i stopped in at the lookout and i wound up looking down
on these mountains and these hillsides that took no pity on this town
i looked into the valley that used to hold the flood
i saw the mills that used to pump this city's blood
all just skeletons and fairy tales to us
but like a camera needs a photographer
these riverbanks just need a little rain
just like the cost of our lives keeps falling
i keep on trying to explain
exactly who i am and who i have to blame
for this view of johnstown from atop the inclined plane
put a quarter in the telescope and you can almost make it out
the artspace that they're opening right outside downtown
it's going to be our hearts, it's going to be our souls,
it's going to take the place of work and church and school
if it doesn't get shut down by city council
but every time god closes one door
he opens another chain store
the last time i came home from tour
this part of town looked like a town i'd seen a thousand times before
but like a singer doesn't need a reason to sing
this city needs no reason for its pain
just like the population keeps on dropping
i keep on trying to explain
exactly who i am and who i have to blame
for this view of johnstown from atop the inclined plane
and they say "come back. come back. the flood is over"
but i say, "come back. come back. the flood has just begun."
drove around about an hour but i didn't get too far
i never left these same old streets or this the same old path
i asked the same old questions that i always ask
like, "why do i keep wasting so much gas?"
so i stopped in at the lookout and i wound up looking down
on these mountains and these hillsides that took no pity on this town
i looked into the valley that used to hold the flood
i saw the mills that used to pump this city's blood
all just skeletons and fairy tales to us
but like a camera needs a photographer
these riverbanks just need a little rain
just like the cost of our lives keeps falling
i keep on trying to explain
exactly who i am and who i have to blame
for this view of johnstown from atop the inclined plane
put a quarter in the telescope and you can almost make it out
the artspace that they're opening right outside downtown
it's going to be our hearts, it's going to be our souls,
it's going to take the place of work and church and school
if it doesn't get shut down by city council
but every time god closes one door
he opens another chain store
the last time i came home from tour
this part of town looked like a town i'd seen a thousand times before
but like a singer doesn't need a reason to sing
this city needs no reason for its pain
just like the population keeps on dropping
i keep on trying to explain
exactly who i am and who i have to blame
for this view of johnstown from atop the inclined plane
and they say "come back. come back. the flood is over"
but i say, "come back. come back. the flood has just begun."
Lyrics submitted by DakotaFloyd
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