"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 take a breath and breathe it out/
Life has been a bitch holding onto me, I'm always freaking out/
I don't play well with others, I panic in the crowd, and I'm quick to fall in love that's why I'm always on the ground/
So pick it up, pop the umbrella over my problems and understand I'll never be a man until I solve them/
And sometimes I wish that I could go back home, yeah crawl into my childhood dreams and be alone/
And that would be everything - just another boy left with nothing /
An object of security slowly losing its stuffing/
The Sumter Square slum king, looking for another motherfucking chance to re-break the broken in is something/
And that's the part I'm never going to get, growing up is more than just a mind state and owning all your debts/
Blowing out the breath I don't feel so tall, so tell me how am I supposed to reach anything, anything at all/
Anything at all/
Tell me how, Can I grow to see the change in my life, I wanted, to overcome the battle inside, what is owed to anxiety's hold is there a better way to figure it out?/
I sweep it all under the rug/
Cover up the loss found inside of me and wash it down with blood/
I was born with an option and taught to swim a flood/
But the older I become I start to humor giving up/
So pick it up, listen to all of the words in my head, and understand I'll have a shaky hand until they're said/
And I don't know if I can get my mind-state back, but I would travel to the end just to feel that grasp/
And that would be everything, speak it through the can on the line, and prophesize the future from the twinkle in my eye/
I could wrinkle up and die in the room where the dreams started talking to me constantly and dancing through the sky/
I'm alive, but growing up has proved to be a task, and left a couple daydreams broken down and smashed/
Looking through the glass I don't feel so tall/
So tell me how am I supposed to reach anything, anything at all/
Anything at all
Tell me how, Can I grow to see the change in my life, I wanted, to overcome the battle inside, what is owed to anxiety's hold is there a better way to figure it out?
Life has been a bitch holding onto me, I'm always freaking out/
I don't play well with others, I panic in the crowd, and I'm quick to fall in love that's why I'm always on the ground/
So pick it up, pop the umbrella over my problems and understand I'll never be a man until I solve them/
And sometimes I wish that I could go back home, yeah crawl into my childhood dreams and be alone/
And that would be everything - just another boy left with nothing /
An object of security slowly losing its stuffing/
The Sumter Square slum king, looking for another motherfucking chance to re-break the broken in is something/
And that's the part I'm never going to get, growing up is more than just a mind state and owning all your debts/
Blowing out the breath I don't feel so tall, so tell me how am I supposed to reach anything, anything at all/
Anything at all/
Tell me how, Can I grow to see the change in my life, I wanted, to overcome the battle inside, what is owed to anxiety's hold is there a better way to figure it out?/
I sweep it all under the rug/
Cover up the loss found inside of me and wash it down with blood/
I was born with an option and taught to swim a flood/
But the older I become I start to humor giving up/
So pick it up, listen to all of the words in my head, and understand I'll have a shaky hand until they're said/
And I don't know if I can get my mind-state back, but I would travel to the end just to feel that grasp/
And that would be everything, speak it through the can on the line, and prophesize the future from the twinkle in my eye/
I could wrinkle up and die in the room where the dreams started talking to me constantly and dancing through the sky/
I'm alive, but growing up has proved to be a task, and left a couple daydreams broken down and smashed/
Looking through the glass I don't feel so tall/
So tell me how am I supposed to reach anything, anything at all/
Anything at all
Tell me how, Can I grow to see the change in my life, I wanted, to overcome the battle inside, what is owed to anxiety's hold is there a better way to figure it out?
Lyrics submitted by Mainsteve66
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