"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’m sorry that I’m late
I went blind
I got confetti in my eyes
I was held up at yesterday’s parties
I was needed on the congo line
But my dear, oh my dear
I’d like to fight the good fight for another couple of years
‘cause to say the war is over is to say you are a widow
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
So this one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers
For the cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other
Ain’t no such thing as a saint,
Ain’t no such thing as a sinner, oh
There’s a swan among the pigeons of Barcelona’s floor
There’s a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door
If you are sharpening your scissors
I am sharpening my scissors,
And I am sharpening my sword
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
Or you can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill.
Oh I see your face when I close my eyes
Oh I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise
To the occasion of catching things that fall
Like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build too tall.
But I have navigated Iceland
I’ve laid my claim on Portugal
I have seen into the wasteland
Oh the future
Oh the future of us all.
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Seen from the back of a train
I rode away from your station
They drifted in the air
Like memoirs of old conversations
Sprung from a leather case
You opened in the wind
To watch the papers chase each other
Into oblivion
(You’re such a champion
You’re such a champion
I hide behind your sun
You are the champion) x3
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
You can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time, oh it is time
For a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill
A bigger kind of kill (x10)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
A bigger kind of kill (x3)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
I went blind
I got confetti in my eyes
I was held up at yesterday’s parties
I was needed on the congo line
But my dear, oh my dear
I’d like to fight the good fight for another couple of years
‘cause to say the war is over is to say you are a widow
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
So this one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers
For the cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other
Ain’t no such thing as a saint,
Ain’t no such thing as a sinner, oh
There’s a swan among the pigeons of Barcelona’s floor
There’s a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door
If you are sharpening your scissors
I am sharpening my scissors,
And I am sharpening my sword
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
Or you can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill.
Oh I see your face when I close my eyes
Oh I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise
To the occasion of catching things that fall
Like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build too tall.
But I have navigated Iceland
I’ve laid my claim on Portugal
I have seen into the wasteland
Oh the future
Oh the future of us all.
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Seen from the back of a train
I rode away from your station
They drifted in the air
Like memoirs of old conversations
Sprung from a leather case
You opened in the wind
To watch the papers chase each other
Into oblivion
(You’re such a champion
You’re such a champion
I hide behind your sun
You are the champion) x3
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
You can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time, oh it is time
For a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill
A bigger kind of kill (x10)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
A bigger kind of kill (x3)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
Lyrics submitted by tjwells, edited by darkforce100
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Lord Huron
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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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
I like the idea of the complicate relationship but I like to think that the trouble is not just the trivial jealousy/unfaithfulness matter. It seems like the two lovers lives far away or anyhow they both have a very independent and busy life. He knows that she's the right one for him and he truly loves her, however he's not yet ready to renounce to his freedom ("the good fight") because in doing that he would die inside ("to say the war is over is to say you are a widow"). Eventually they're living this sort of open realtionship in a period of life in wich people start to marry and settle down ("So this one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers"). This would explain also the "confetti" from the party, maybe a wedding.
In this sense I would interpret also the refrain: the "scissors" could be used by her (Rapunzel) to cut her tress and let him down (end the relationship) but if she threat to do so he is ready ot embrace the "sword" - not to fight with her - but to face the "Dragon", or rather the beast that keep him always travelling. Either way it's time to find a solution to this situation ("a bigger kind of kill")
After the firs impetus he sounds like he's taken by nostalgia (the song slow down) and he regrets all the time he wasted walking around chasing for something, for someone ("I kicked up a whole country of dead, dead leaves last fall"). Maybe he's leaving once again ("seen from the back of a train") and the dead leaves remember him of all the "memoirs of old conversations", the love letters ("papers") that seem so pointless now that he's experiencing the lost of her.
But, in the very end I can ear a spell of hope in his voice, because he knows that she is "such a champion", the only one that can understand and bear his restlessness and his expectations ("catching the statuettes that falls from the pedestals I tend to build too tall") and one day she will help him to defight the Dragon.
wonderful interpretation, I think you're right on the mark.