"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.
Hey where'd everybody go
Everyone I know has blown the coast
Shiver in the wind it shows
All I have are summer clothes
Oh and it brings me down when it's winter time in a summer town
All we are are friends we keep or lose in time
Fade away, the precious ones we keep in mind
I wonder now it I'm the one that you'd leave behind
Cause after Halloween
Everything starts fading
I'm losing everyone
I go down like the sun
You know what I mean
I'm just someone in a summer town
Standing by the old beach house where we stood outside and sang out loud
Now I shiver like a ghost I remember the time that we drew a crowd and
I told you everything I knew in one manic rushing line
I wonder now if I'm the kind that you'd leave behind
Cause after Halloween
Everything starts fading
I'm losing everyone
I go down like the sun
You know What I mean
My whole life is a summer town
I get into the people you met
And the moment comes that you can't forget
Time flies in trajectory
Did you give me more than you took from me
I'm as empty now as a vacant sign
Tonight
After Halloween
Can we stay together
I'm losing everyone
And I come undone
Nothing lasts forever
Last summer's done
Can we find another one
Find another one
I wish I was a spray can, I'd write my name on the world
I wish I was a megaphone with my speaker blown,
To get myself known
In a summer town
Smell sun block on her hot skin in a bungalow before the day begins,
This is some dumb jam it doesn't mean a thing, ecstasy, rave is king,
Fake diamonds shining on her finger.
I'm as bad for you as anyone you ever know,
Still you stole my soul,
Or I gave it to you, get high and do the five five deal,
Rock a fanny pack now from the front,
She's generous with the bumps of fake cocaine,
It was funny once then,
Now it's funny again and I was never able to reach her,
No, maybe the next leap of the creature, maybe then,
Summer dis and then you go away,
Wanna be the hustler school
M-I-A make a paper plane and then you fly away, fly away,
Where's my super secret stupid fucking pocket where I left my bungalow keys,
How am I always waking up in places like these,
Who's been singing all my symphonies,
Rat bastards palliate my infamies,
You'll be burning begging please,
Back to the champ in the little sun dress,
She was reading Nabokov, Miller, and Tess,
Undressed so fine just as you are,
A stone cold rap superstar
And I was never able to reach her
Alright
Everyone I know has blown the coast
Shiver in the wind it shows
All I have are summer clothes
Oh and it brings me down when it's winter time in a summer town
All we are are friends we keep or lose in time
Fade away, the precious ones we keep in mind
I wonder now it I'm the one that you'd leave behind
Cause after Halloween
Everything starts fading
I'm losing everyone
I go down like the sun
You know what I mean
I'm just someone in a summer town
Standing by the old beach house where we stood outside and sang out loud
Now I shiver like a ghost I remember the time that we drew a crowd and
I told you everything I knew in one manic rushing line
I wonder now if I'm the kind that you'd leave behind
Cause after Halloween
Everything starts fading
I'm losing everyone
I go down like the sun
You know What I mean
My whole life is a summer town
I get into the people you met
And the moment comes that you can't forget
Time flies in trajectory
Did you give me more than you took from me
I'm as empty now as a vacant sign
Tonight
After Halloween
Can we stay together
I'm losing everyone
And I come undone
Nothing lasts forever
Last summer's done
Can we find another one
Find another one
I wish I was a spray can, I'd write my name on the world
I wish I was a megaphone with my speaker blown,
To get myself known
In a summer town
Smell sun block on her hot skin in a bungalow before the day begins,
This is some dumb jam it doesn't mean a thing, ecstasy, rave is king,
Fake diamonds shining on her finger.
I'm as bad for you as anyone you ever know,
Still you stole my soul,
Or I gave it to you, get high and do the five five deal,
Rock a fanny pack now from the front,
She's generous with the bumps of fake cocaine,
It was funny once then,
Now it's funny again and I was never able to reach her,
No, maybe the next leap of the creature, maybe then,
Summer dis and then you go away,
Wanna be the hustler school
M-I-A make a paper plane and then you fly away, fly away,
Where's my super secret stupid fucking pocket where I left my bungalow keys,
How am I always waking up in places like these,
Who's been singing all my symphonies,
Rat bastards palliate my infamies,
You'll be burning begging please,
Back to the champ in the little sun dress,
She was reading Nabokov, Miller, and Tess,
Undressed so fine just as you are,
A stone cold rap superstar
And I was never able to reach her
Alright
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More Featured Meanings
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"
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.
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.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
I think he is telling of a time that he will always remember, the summer, it's who he is and will always be. People keep telling him to move on from that fun summer aspect of his life and get back to reality but no matter what he will not give into that because he knows who he is and where he belongs.