"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.
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love
Verse 1:
She was so stuck, a fool in love with the wrong thing
And then along came the wrong man for her
The former, position of a pimp
He ain't have em on a track, he just had em like that
An uptown cat, Kennedy where he be at
She wasn't hip to the niggas were he be at
And she was from the burbs
And not the black burbs, I mean the white burbs
But that's what he liked her
Fascinated her, discriminated school boy
See, she would complained of the tested nature
Oh how she love the gangstas, they love them green ones
They love misleading them having there beliefs fucked
Since she wasn't really cribbing to his living
Soon as para finite will paralyze her existence
She was persistent on love though omit it
Waited on its arrival but baby but never get it
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love
Verse 2:
Yeah months in every night she's in tears
She tried to call home mom dukes ain't care
She like, girl you wrong running away from home
So I guess you think you grown
So go on girl get on
She fiend for attentions
While his fiends for cream well exceeded the dream she once lived for
Oh its over whole time she knows this
Homie will never love her, although he'll probably have a fit
If his bitch insist on getting sick
And tired of his shit and tries to just split
So she just sit while settling for the lesser
A breakdown broad oh she could of done better
A cocaine measurer, part time lover
A full time sex slave, never find another
Couple months under him something in the oven
She says I got news, he denies that young'n
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love again
Verse 3:
As she goes through the levels
She feels a baby is the way to save her relationship that ain't nothing
But it ain't change nothing, he getting worser
And she getting bigger so she feeling like she cursed
Time to get her bags get ghost
Hoping that mama would sympathize cause she broke
So she finally gets the courage to tell him on his arrival
Waiting holding her stomach but holmes would never find out
The door crack, niggas all black
Kicked down the door the looking for the cash
They took her by the throat, we front in here for dope
We don't with the jokes girl, where the fuck the notes at
We called your man he knew just what it is
We told him no dough then we go and get your bitch
The nerve of this prick, she said fuck it you can have em
We calling his bluff, so get your nose on this handgun
She just laughs as her life starts flashing back
And there's little to be glad for
I've been living in hell so death can never fade me
Bullets penetrate me, but they can never faze me
I can never face me again, cause I hate me
So tell him I been dead he killed me when he made me
He killed me when he made me, tell him I been dead POW!
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love again
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love
Verse 1:
She was so stuck, a fool in love with the wrong thing
And then along came the wrong man for her
The former, position of a pimp
He ain't have em on a track, he just had em like that
An uptown cat, Kennedy where he be at
She wasn't hip to the niggas were he be at
And she was from the burbs
And not the black burbs, I mean the white burbs
But that's what he liked her
Fascinated her, discriminated school boy
See, she would complained of the tested nature
Oh how she love the gangstas, they love them green ones
They love misleading them having there beliefs fucked
Since she wasn't really cribbing to his living
Soon as para finite will paralyze her existence
She was persistent on love though omit it
Waited on its arrival but baby but never get it
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love
Verse 2:
Yeah months in every night she's in tears
She tried to call home mom dukes ain't care
She like, girl you wrong running away from home
So I guess you think you grown
So go on girl get on
She fiend for attentions
While his fiends for cream well exceeded the dream she once lived for
Oh its over whole time she knows this
Homie will never love her, although he'll probably have a fit
If his bitch insist on getting sick
And tired of his shit and tries to just split
So she just sit while settling for the lesser
A breakdown broad oh she could of done better
A cocaine measurer, part time lover
A full time sex slave, never find another
Couple months under him something in the oven
She says I got news, he denies that young'n
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love again
Verse 3:
As she goes through the levels
She feels a baby is the way to save her relationship that ain't nothing
But it ain't change nothing, he getting worser
And she getting bigger so she feeling like she cursed
Time to get her bags get ghost
Hoping that mama would sympathize cause she broke
So she finally gets the courage to tell him on his arrival
Waiting holding her stomach but holmes would never find out
The door crack, niggas all black
Kicked down the door the looking for the cash
They took her by the throat, we front in here for dope
We don't with the jokes girl, where the fuck the notes at
We called your man he knew just what it is
We told him no dough then we go and get your bitch
The nerve of this prick, she said fuck it you can have em
We calling his bluff, so get your nose on this handgun
She just laughs as her life starts flashing back
And there's little to be glad for
I've been living in hell so death can never fade me
Bullets penetrate me, but they can never faze me
I can never face me again, cause I hate me
So tell him I been dead he killed me when he made me
He killed me when he made me, tell him I been dead POW!
Chorus:
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, searching for love
Ice melts into rain
Love turns into pain
Here I go again, falling in love again
Lyrics submitted by inomusic88
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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.
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.
This is one of Wale's quite blunt tracks. I think inomusic hit the nail on the head.