"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 can feel her breath
As she's sleeping next to me
Sharing pillows and cold feet
She can feel my heart
Fell asleep to its beat
Under blankets and warm sheets
If only I could be in that bed again
If only it were me instead of him
Does he watch your favorite movies?
Does he hold you when you cry?
Does he let you tell him all your favorite parts
When you've seen it a million times?
Does he sing to all your music
While you dance to Purple Rain?
Does he do all these things
Like I used to?
Fourteen months and seven days ago
Oh, I know you know
How we felt about that night
Just your skin against the window
Oh we took it slow
And we both know
It should have been me inside that car
It should have been me instead of him in the dark
Does he watch your favorite movies?
Does he hold you when you cry?
Does he let you tell him all your favorite parts
When you've seen it a million times?
Does he sing to all your music
While you dance to Purple Rain?
Does he do all these things
Like I used to?
I know love
(I'm a sucker for that feeling)
Happens all the time, love
(I always end up feeling cheated)
You're on my mind, love
(Oh darling, I know I'm not needed)
It happens all the time, love, yeah
Will he love you like I loved you?
Will he tell you every day?
Will he make you feel like you're invincible
With every word he'll say?
Can you promise me if this was right,
Don't throw it all away?
Can you do all these things?
Will you do all these things
Like we used to?
Oh, like we used to
As she's sleeping next to me
Sharing pillows and cold feet
She can feel my heart
Fell asleep to its beat
Under blankets and warm sheets
If only I could be in that bed again
If only it were me instead of him
Does he watch your favorite movies?
Does he hold you when you cry?
Does he let you tell him all your favorite parts
When you've seen it a million times?
Does he sing to all your music
While you dance to Purple Rain?
Does he do all these things
Like I used to?
Fourteen months and seven days ago
Oh, I know you know
How we felt about that night
Just your skin against the window
Oh we took it slow
And we both know
It should have been me inside that car
It should have been me instead of him in the dark
Does he watch your favorite movies?
Does he hold you when you cry?
Does he let you tell him all your favorite parts
When you've seen it a million times?
Does he sing to all your music
While you dance to Purple Rain?
Does he do all these things
Like I used to?
I know love
(I'm a sucker for that feeling)
Happens all the time, love
(I always end up feeling cheated)
You're on my mind, love
(Oh darling, I know I'm not needed)
It happens all the time, love, yeah
Will he love you like I loved you?
Will he tell you every day?
Will he make you feel like you're invincible
With every word he'll say?
Can you promise me if this was right,
Don't throw it all away?
Can you do all these things?
Will you do all these things
Like we used to?
Oh, like we used to
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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"
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
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.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
I love this song so much. It's sad, but at the same time makes me sort of happy-feel. Perhaps they got the feel of the song wrong that way, or it was meant. But I love it.