"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.
We picked our way
Down to the beach
Watching the waves dragging out of our reach
Tangling tails like a sodden sheet
Dangling entrails from a gut of the sea
Hoarding our meals
Alfalfa and rolls
Trying not to catch the cold eye of the gulls
I hope mother nature has not overheard
Though she doles out hurt like a puking bird
You stayed for the winter
No one told us about the laws of the land
I hold my own but you with your hunger
You and the other hand
Make yourself known
And when we were found
I know we both grieved
My heart made the sound of snow falling from eaves
You and me, Bess
We was as thick as thieves
So I swore nonetheless
Up and down, it was only me
So they took me away
And after some time
Studying my case must have made up their minds
By the time you realized I was dying
Must have been too late
I believe you were not lying a little
It is the day I
Wait with my ears cocked up like a gun
Like every day of course
Yanked by my wrists to the sugar front court yard
Now tell me what have I done?
Seems I have stolen a horse and I step to the gallows
Who do you think that you are?
Arching your hooves like a crane in the shallow
Gutters that line the boulevards
Powdered with folks who just stare as I hang
It's all the same
Kindness comes over me, what was your name?
It makes no difference, I'm glad that you came
Forever I'll listen to your glad neighing
Down to the beach
Watching the waves dragging out of our reach
Tangling tails like a sodden sheet
Dangling entrails from a gut of the sea
Hoarding our meals
Alfalfa and rolls
Trying not to catch the cold eye of the gulls
I hope mother nature has not overheard
Though she doles out hurt like a puking bird
You stayed for the winter
No one told us about the laws of the land
I hold my own but you with your hunger
You and the other hand
Make yourself known
And when we were found
I know we both grieved
My heart made the sound of snow falling from eaves
You and me, Bess
We was as thick as thieves
So I swore nonetheless
Up and down, it was only me
So they took me away
And after some time
Studying my case must have made up their minds
By the time you realized I was dying
Must have been too late
I believe you were not lying a little
It is the day I
Wait with my ears cocked up like a gun
Like every day of course
Yanked by my wrists to the sugar front court yard
Now tell me what have I done?
Seems I have stolen a horse and I step to the gallows
Who do you think that you are?
Arching your hooves like a crane in the shallow
Gutters that line the boulevards
Powdered with folks who just stare as I hang
It's all the same
Kindness comes over me, what was your name?
It makes no difference, I'm glad that you came
Forever I'll listen to your glad neighing
Lyrics submitted by theboydetective
You and Me, Bess Lyrics as written by Joanna Newsom
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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"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"
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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"
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Great version of a great song,
Punchline
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this song is clearly about dick turpin and black bess, but i think (as in so much of her other work) that joanna is relating this story to the narrator's own in a way. she (the narrator) feels as if she has lost herself, that a part of her has died with the previous tragic events. given her penchant for dreaming, i think that perhaps this song could actually be about a dream that our narrator has in which she is turpin. i'm sure everyone knows how dreams can sometimes feel more vivid and real than waking life, and also, how in dreams, a person can experience being someone else entirely. that could be what's going on here, but again, that's just my two cents.
to me, this is by far one of the most poignant songs on the album. the imagery is so strong: one can completely picture the pair standing on a lonesome beach, looking out at a looming, unfriendly sea in which the waves "[drag] out of [their] reach, tangling tails, like a sodden sheet, dangling entrails from the gut of the sea." the line, "my heart made the sound of snow falling from eaves" strikes me as particularly sad. i feel like, once again, that's the sort of sentiment or occurrence that would make plenty of sense when one is dreaming, but seem sort of "off" when that person is awake.
the thought of turpin being in prison and in such a fragile mental state that he can't remember exactly why is very hard-hitting. i picture him there, with a vague memory of a friend with whom he was as "thick as thieves," unable to recall details or remember anything more. then, when bess intuitively shows up for his hanging, he recognizes her, but can't remember her name. he realizes, in the last moment of his life, that her name doesn't matter: what matters is the strong feelings of warmth and kindness that her presence evokes in him. the song is truly touching.