"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.
That was as far as the tide came in
I remember the starfish and the wails of the sirens then
We replaced the tridents, embraced Poseidon
And discovered ourselves living on an island
We flow like water across the lost city
Chalk prophecies and washed off graffiti
In continents
Trade off for payoff
And high concepts then lost to K-Os
Many tales radiate from one nexus
Defending a dream of a new directive
A call from the deep sums up a notion
The day when the people bum rushed the ocean
From the beaches they ran to meet the day after
Underneath the waves won’t repeat the same chapter
Knew what they had to do
That which creates life has power to take it right back
Fucking with the icecaps
We’ve gotta push the tide back
We can survive collapse if we don’t get sidetracked
If we visualize living underwater hidden by prisms
Countries fall but people transition if one for all we live in that vision
Hundred dollar bill origami
Balloon inflation new world economy
We float on tsunami to global warming
We need structures to control what’s coming
Corporate monopolies obsolete
The philosophy leaves us lost at sea
But from Marwar to Cochabamba
We are the warriors that won’t get conquered
‘Cause rising tides drown all villages
Divided fighters succumb to pillage
Rescuers whatever your latitude
It’s time to pioneer a new world attitude
Put local cycles first we’re Global Islanders with nothing left to plunder
Alert the law alternate nations train in the streets
Act to limit all non-transparent industries so
We must defend Atlantis
Anchor the land and never transform into seas
Assets to liquify all netted toxic indices so
We must defend Atlantis
For centuries human beings have pursued the meaning of Atlantis
Central to their teaching is that it’s existence answers man’s essential questions
Much like the feeding of the 5,000
Even if the facts aren’t accurate the story’s magic is alive
Of utmost importance to convert the impertinent
Atlantis holds the answer to man‘s ills at their most pertinent
Aspersions easily dispersed when I certainly answer
The most diverse aversions when I firstly channel _
Is this all that you hold
For a warriors role
The ground shakes
You claim my country not my soul
I fought I toiled, for the lost in the waves I will not tire
I die no slave
If the seas my grave
I sleep with my city
My people my oath
My shame my city is that
I cannot save my city
From waves that claim you
And curse the gods who can’t explain
Who to blame
At the end of the reign
Heed me
The season passes Atlas
His keeps in the sediment
Failing monumentally
And leaving no monuments to see
Only sea to shining sea
(Assess the loss as new tidal inundations surface
Amidst the legions are now thousands in starfish
We must defend Atlantis
As the land acquiesces no tears in sympathy
Address the legacy and never treat it separately
Access telepathy last as neverending transcendency…)
And survival hinged on an attempt by the humble
And the sirens wailed as the empire crumbled…
With nothing left to plunder corporations drowned
Waves clapped like thunder and stormed the gates with sound
Forming a new nation now
As the icecaps melted water levels rose
We raised our hands together and made the levees hold
Heals in the sand we revealed the depths below
The population of starfish exploded from the ocean
Survival we unified to focus on
And the voices were many but we spoke as one
As the tale was retold we multiplied
And swelled across the faultlines to halt the tide
We let the altars die to keep our pulse alive
And from the barren wastelands of naked trash
We stitched together a shelter from fallen nation’s flags
And chose to build a future from an ancient past
The crowns of thorns was worn we put the tritons down
We found new forms of anchors deep inside the ground
The world is an island now
I remember the starfish and the wails of the sirens then
We replaced the tridents, embraced Poseidon
And discovered ourselves living on an island
We flow like water across the lost city
Chalk prophecies and washed off graffiti
In continents
Trade off for payoff
And high concepts then lost to K-Os
Many tales radiate from one nexus
Defending a dream of a new directive
A call from the deep sums up a notion
The day when the people bum rushed the ocean
From the beaches they ran to meet the day after
Underneath the waves won’t repeat the same chapter
Knew what they had to do
That which creates life has power to take it right back
Fucking with the icecaps
We’ve gotta push the tide back
We can survive collapse if we don’t get sidetracked
If we visualize living underwater hidden by prisms
Countries fall but people transition if one for all we live in that vision
Hundred dollar bill origami
Balloon inflation new world economy
We float on tsunami to global warming
We need structures to control what’s coming
Corporate monopolies obsolete
The philosophy leaves us lost at sea
But from Marwar to Cochabamba
We are the warriors that won’t get conquered
‘Cause rising tides drown all villages
Divided fighters succumb to pillage
Rescuers whatever your latitude
It’s time to pioneer a new world attitude
Put local cycles first we’re Global Islanders with nothing left to plunder
Alert the law alternate nations train in the streets
Act to limit all non-transparent industries so
We must defend Atlantis
Anchor the land and never transform into seas
Assets to liquify all netted toxic indices so
We must defend Atlantis
For centuries human beings have pursued the meaning of Atlantis
Central to their teaching is that it’s existence answers man’s essential questions
Much like the feeding of the 5,000
Even if the facts aren’t accurate the story’s magic is alive
Of utmost importance to convert the impertinent
Atlantis holds the answer to man‘s ills at their most pertinent
Aspersions easily dispersed when I certainly answer
The most diverse aversions when I firstly channel _
Is this all that you hold
For a warriors role
The ground shakes
You claim my country not my soul
I fought I toiled, for the lost in the waves I will not tire
I die no slave
If the seas my grave
I sleep with my city
My people my oath
My shame my city is that
I cannot save my city
From waves that claim you
And curse the gods who can’t explain
Who to blame
At the end of the reign
Heed me
The season passes Atlas
His keeps in the sediment
Failing monumentally
And leaving no monuments to see
Only sea to shining sea
(Assess the loss as new tidal inundations surface
Amidst the legions are now thousands in starfish
We must defend Atlantis
As the land acquiesces no tears in sympathy
Address the legacy and never treat it separately
Access telepathy last as neverending transcendency…)
And survival hinged on an attempt by the humble
And the sirens wailed as the empire crumbled…
With nothing left to plunder corporations drowned
Waves clapped like thunder and stormed the gates with sound
Forming a new nation now
As the icecaps melted water levels rose
We raised our hands together and made the levees hold
Heals in the sand we revealed the depths below
The population of starfish exploded from the ocean
Survival we unified to focus on
And the voices were many but we spoke as one
As the tale was retold we multiplied
And swelled across the faultlines to halt the tide
We let the altars die to keep our pulse alive
And from the barren wastelands of naked trash
We stitched together a shelter from fallen nation’s flags
And chose to build a future from an ancient past
The crowns of thorns was worn we put the tritons down
We found new forms of anchors deep inside the ground
The world is an island now
Lyrics submitted by hitchcockm00
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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"
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.
The song, in my opinion, is talking more cause awareness of global warming and how little things can make a big difference. It is talking about how careless people are and how things are just going to get worse if nothing is done. People are going to regret not doing anything about global warming.