"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.
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The song starts out with the lyric, "I'm a broken soul. I'm an open book with many torn out pages." The writer is starting out by saying he's someone who's torn and has many parts about him that he doesn't like or wants to rip out of him. The first lyric goes on to say he's searching for a way to let go of his mistakes and find something meaningful out of life, but he continues to come back to the bad parts. The chorus then says, "Turn our eyes away, turn our eyes away from this path we've taken, washing clean our faces. Turn our eyes away, turn our eyes away, leaning on the hope that one day even we will be saved." This is the writer's way of saying that he needs to turn away from these bad parts, and then maybe through doing so he will be saved from them. He goes on to say that he wants to surrender from this constant battle, but he won't do that because he knows it's too important. He says that it's a choice that everyone has to make. Whether to fight everyday to be a good person or to let the bad parts and mistakes overtake you. The Chorus then repeats until the end of the song. This song is addressing the light and dark parts of our humanity. He's trying to tell everyone that we have to fight to keep ourselves from submitting to the dark parts and places within ourselves. One day we will be saved from those parts, but for now we have to fight and keep our hope alive.