"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 try to call the Earth's command
Desperation in my voice
I'm drifting way off course now
With very little choice
The loneliness is hard to bear
I try to calm my fear
Just hoping any second now
Some contact filters through
Desperate calls
Signal back from satellite
As my life
Flashes right in front of me
Try again, must get through
Hear me now
For I've very little time
Not much time, hear my call
Please get through
I am here
I'm stranded in space
I'm lost with a trace
I haven't a chance of getting away
Too close to the Sun
I surely will burn
Like Icarus before me
Or so legend goes
I think of my life
Reliving the past
There's nothing but wait 'til my time comes
I've had a good life
I'll do it again
Maybe I'll come back some time afresh
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
To tell them one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
If I could survive
To live one more time
I wouldn't be changing a thing at all
Done more in my life
Than some do in ten
I'd go back and do it all over again
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
And tell them that one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
There isn't much time
Must say my last rites
Nobody is here to read them to me
Must say my goodbyes
If only a line
A message to tell them in case they might find
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
To tell them that one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
Desperation in my voice
I'm drifting way off course now
With very little choice
The loneliness is hard to bear
I try to calm my fear
Just hoping any second now
Some contact filters through
Desperate calls
Signal back from satellite
As my life
Flashes right in front of me
Try again, must get through
Hear me now
For I've very little time
Not much time, hear my call
Please get through
I am here
I'm stranded in space
I'm lost with a trace
I haven't a chance of getting away
Too close to the Sun
I surely will burn
Like Icarus before me
Or so legend goes
I think of my life
Reliving the past
There's nothing but wait 'til my time comes
I've had a good life
I'll do it again
Maybe I'll come back some time afresh
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
To tell them one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
If I could survive
To live one more time
I wouldn't be changing a thing at all
Done more in my life
Than some do in ten
I'd go back and do it all over again
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
And tell them that one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
There isn't much time
Must say my last rites
Nobody is here to read them to me
Must say my goodbyes
If only a line
A message to tell them in case they might find
For I have lived my life to the full
I have no regrets
But I wish I could talk to my family
To tell them that one last goodbye
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
The final frontier
Lyrics submitted by Octavarium64
Satellite 15...The Final Frontier Lyrics as written by Stephen Percy Harris Adrian Frederick Smith
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
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.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
I doubt, from the almost casual references to space that are scattered throughout the lyrics, that this is referring to space as being "The Final Frontier." I think that, as this guy is talking about how he's lived a good life and has done so much, and how he's not afraid of death anymore, that he is implying that death is the Final Frontier. Death is the one thing that we never know until we get there. It is the real Final Frontier. I can see this theme fitting in with the rest of the album, as it contains many references to space, but that might just be part of a double entendre. There are a few other songs that contain cryptic references to death or are more specifically focused on death as a lyrical theme. So I really think that this album is really mostly about death, but it just happens to happen partly in space to give it a slightly darker and alien context.