"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.
When he stepped up the narrow street
Smiling proud and young
Around the hemp, around his neck
The golden ringlets clung
There was never a tear in his blue eyes
But sad and bright were they
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
When he last stepped up that street
Shining steel in hand
Behind him marched in gray array
A stalwart earnest band
For Antrim town, for Antrim town
He lept into the fray
Now young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
See the host of fleet foot men
Dismayed with faces wan
From Verners house and fishers cut
Along the banks of Bann
They come with vengeance in their eyes
Too late, too late are they
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
Smiling proud and young
Around the hemp, around his neck
The golden ringlets clung
There was never a tear in his blue eyes
But sad and bright were they
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
When he last stepped up that street
Shining steel in hand
Behind him marched in gray array
A stalwart earnest band
For Antrim town, for Antrim town
He lept into the fray
Now young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
See the host of fleet foot men
Dismayed with faces wan
From Verners house and fishers cut
Along the banks of Bann
They come with vengeance in their eyes
Too late, too late are they
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Tuam today
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Part of a ballad about Roddy McCorley, a United Irishman and a participant in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, who was executed by the British on 28 February 1800 in the town of Toomebridge "near the bridge of Toome."
The ballad was written at the time of the 1898 commemorations for the 1798 Rebellion by Anna Johnston who used the pen name Ethna Carbery (1866—1902).