"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.
Well I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
And it felt just like
A barbell wrapped in a shell
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
I could feel its weary muscles under the dirt
When I slept on
The solid ground
Right next to you
And the frost looked like
A castle
Wrapped up in a tale
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
You could feel by
The corner
Step right in.
In Winter decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
In Winter's decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
In Winter's decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
The solid ground
Near your house
And it felt just like
A barbell wrapped in a shell
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
I could feel its weary muscles under the dirt
When I slept on
The solid ground
Right next to you
And the frost looked like
A castle
Wrapped up in a tale
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
You could feel by
The corner
Step right in.
In Winter decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
In Winter's decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
In Winter's decay
When hope and plans seem all but gone
You have found a way
To make me seem like almost drawn
When I slept on
The solid ground
Near your house
Lyrics submitted by Polygraph
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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"
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.
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
i think this is wrong
"And the frost looked like A castle Wrapped up in a tale"
i think its suppose to say "Wrapped up in Tin"
I think I'm hearing "a barbell wrapped in a shirt". I also agree with soy sauce about "wrapped up in tin". "you could feel by the corner" sounds like "you could peel back the corner" to me and I think it makes more sense the way I'm hearing it. Fantastic band, lets all support them as well as we can.
"A barbell wrapped in a shirt" That is kind of how sleeping on the ground feels.
Also: "You could peel back the corner and step right in"
"You have found a way to make me seem like almost warm" Makes sense with the winter line.
this song was created in a clown factory.
i think it's 'wrapped up in a tent'
and i like bocmaxima's 'seem like almost warm.' that makes a lot more sense to me
Alright, seriously, why all the confusion?
"And it felt just like a barbell wrapped in a shirt" is correct and goes along with "I could feel its weary muscles under the dirt." Bocmaxima is right, that's how it feels to lie on dirt ground, much the way it feels to hold a barbell wrapped in a shirt: it's a slight comfort to the already too weary. It also, along with its rhyming line, illustrates the singer's closeness to the place, a place so near and dear to him that the earth there itself shares his weariness.
"And the frost looked like a castle wrapped up in tin" is correct and goes along with "you could peel back the corner and step right in." He's probably talking about the frost on her walls, reflective like tin. Perhaps evocative of some kind of commoner/countess affair felt in him at simply being near her bed, near her window.
"In winter decay, when hope and plans seem all but gone, you have found a way to make me seem like almost dawn." Have you ever spent the night on dirt ground in winter? You lose everything. Everything you hold on to is pulled down with your warmth into the cold earth. You lose all reason and hope. But when you see the dawn coming, all of that changes: you remember the daylight. There is only one other thing in this world that can make you feel what is felt in that moment. A proximity to the one you love.
"To make me seem like almost drawn" sounds wrong to me. I'm hearing 'these' instead of 'me.' I'm not sure about the last word. I've watched a few live videos, and it sounds like it starts with a B. But I can't figure it out...