"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.
1.
When night falls on the sell-by date
and the last visible star
beyond the billboards
lands at the Oakland airport.
A leftover northerly flaps a logo
atop a Broadway storefront,
itself on its ninth new name
in as many same-place years.
When my bed pop. is halved by one
and I'm still receiving the past-due specters
of previous renter,
all stuck together like diner slips,
in a pinned pile of fathers and light bills
When you find a ragged I.O.U.
where your 2 A.M. should be,
try counting one hour
under a corner window
without an engine going off.
2.
The cufflinked ghost of sick days to come,
the spirit of a wristwatch-weaving people,
native, scholars say, to a cubicle limbo
set between first floor and god.
They even commuted under the sea
from suburbs away, thinking of sleep.
This call-out phantom clocked out in time,
tugged at his tie, then took me aside....
And he told me -- get this-- he was like,
"You have no future as a temp."
You know? Me!
"In another time, another place, he may have been a seer,
a shaman priest, but in our world he's a shoe salesman who
lives among the shadows."
I mean we all have our sample cases to bear--
the credit reports of the ancestors--
but admitting defeat is like comparing scars:
not on first dates or as red-light outlines
in singles bars. I'm thinking here
of Jesus buttons on freezing bums
and people's "Bald men make better lovers"
bumper stickers on their automoblies.
I was trained by a compromise in high heels
whose perfect promotion ever fell through,
who commuted all the way under the sea
from suburbs away, where the lofts are cheaper
and the hitting of middle softer.
3.
When opportunity doorbell ditches,
and the restart button sticks,
it's all Wednesday morning hangovers
and a phone voice that flickers.
Field reports from the feral front desks
of the grand financial district,
where rolling blackouts lead brokers
to count shares in cubes candlelit.
When day breaks on the expiration date,
and even the lights have files for bankruptcy...
My life as a floating relief receptionist:
dropping names in pockets of voicemail.
These days have already shed themselves;
decidious, calendrical shells.
When night falls on the sell-by date
and the last visible star
beyond the billboards
lands at the Oakland airport.
A leftover northerly flaps a logo
atop a Broadway storefront,
itself on its ninth new name
in as many same-place years.
When my bed pop. is halved by one
and I'm still receiving the past-due specters
of previous renter,
all stuck together like diner slips,
in a pinned pile of fathers and light bills
When you find a ragged I.O.U.
where your 2 A.M. should be,
try counting one hour
under a corner window
without an engine going off.
2.
The cufflinked ghost of sick days to come,
the spirit of a wristwatch-weaving people,
native, scholars say, to a cubicle limbo
set between first floor and god.
They even commuted under the sea
from suburbs away, thinking of sleep.
This call-out phantom clocked out in time,
tugged at his tie, then took me aside....
And he told me -- get this-- he was like,
"You have no future as a temp."
You know? Me!
"In another time, another place, he may have been a seer,
a shaman priest, but in our world he's a shoe salesman who
lives among the shadows."
I mean we all have our sample cases to bear--
the credit reports of the ancestors--
but admitting defeat is like comparing scars:
not on first dates or as red-light outlines
in singles bars. I'm thinking here
of Jesus buttons on freezing bums
and people's "Bald men make better lovers"
bumper stickers on their automoblies.
I was trained by a compromise in high heels
whose perfect promotion ever fell through,
who commuted all the way under the sea
from suburbs away, where the lofts are cheaper
and the hitting of middle softer.
3.
When opportunity doorbell ditches,
and the restart button sticks,
it's all Wednesday morning hangovers
and a phone voice that flickers.
Field reports from the feral front desks
of the grand financial district,
where rolling blackouts lead brokers
to count shares in cubes candlelit.
When day breaks on the expiration date,
and even the lights have files for bankruptcy...
My life as a floating relief receptionist:
dropping names in pockets of voicemail.
These days have already shed themselves;
decidious, calendrical shells.
Lyrics submitted by Malhavic
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