"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.
Headlights burning on the interstate pavement
I take a slow drag and my mind slips away
Away, away
It's a long night down the 95
Trying to beat the sunrise,
Staying up all night
I'm not sleeping till I cross the state line
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
High school sweetheart serving,
Broken spirits at the local bar
First love with a new last name, yeah
Next stop, my old home
It's got a new front porch,
Where flowers used to grow
Everybody has something to show,
I've got a thousand different stories,
And nothing to hold
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
No more birthdays from the telephone,
No more holidays spent alone,
No more asking when I'm coming home
I, I, I'm sticking around
Yeah
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
Someday, somehow
Someday, somehow
I take a slow drag and my mind slips away
Away, away
It's a long night down the 95
Trying to beat the sunrise,
Staying up all night
I'm not sleeping till I cross the state line
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
High school sweetheart serving,
Broken spirits at the local bar
First love with a new last name, yeah
Next stop, my old home
It's got a new front porch,
Where flowers used to grow
Everybody has something to show,
I've got a thousand different stories,
And nothing to hold
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
No more birthdays from the telephone,
No more holidays spent alone,
No more asking when I'm coming home
I, I, I'm sticking around
Yeah
Someday, somehow,
I'll make it home and I, I'll stick around
One day I'll say,
"No more packing up,
I'm settling down."
Someday, someday I'll figure it out,
Someday, somehow
Someday, somehow
Someday, somehow
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More Featured Meanings
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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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.
The lyrics: "No more birthdays from the telephone No more holidays spent alone No more asking when I'm coming home I'm sticking around"
are brilliant. It really describes how long-distance relationships work. It's always unpredictable. You're calling to say Happy birthday instead of being there to help blow out the candles, holidays suck because you're apart, and never knowing when you're going to see the one you love is the worst.