"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.
Everything is subject to change.
There are the chances and the place I might rearrange
Every feeling, every thought I've ever had.
So come on throw it, make it count, kill me quick, kill me now.
Kill me now.
Everything still feels the same.
It has it's moments but the basics are always in place.
Every drive, every marker that I've seen
Proves the distance, my existence is to be a slave to you.
To you, what about me?
We've been driving fast
Driving fast for a long time.
When you think it's going to break it just bends.
The back nine is two years away.
This is the chance that we all gave.
Somewhere I've got a brother that I've never seen.
I really think I'd like to meet him and teach him the meaning
Of staying indoors.
So please just stay bored and give me your wallet.
What about me, how about you?
There are the chances and the place I might rearrange
Every feeling, every thought I've ever had.
So come on throw it, make it count, kill me quick, kill me now.
Kill me now.
Everything still feels the same.
It has it's moments but the basics are always in place.
Every drive, every marker that I've seen
Proves the distance, my existence is to be a slave to you.
To you, what about me?
We've been driving fast
Driving fast for a long time.
When you think it's going to break it just bends.
The back nine is two years away.
This is the chance that we all gave.
Somewhere I've got a brother that I've never seen.
I really think I'd like to meet him and teach him the meaning
Of staying indoors.
So please just stay bored and give me your wallet.
What about me, how about you?
Lyrics submitted by chubamuck
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Everything is subject to change. There are the chances and the place I might rearrange. Every feeling, every thought I've ever had. So come on throw it, make it count, kill me quick, kill me now.
Kill me now.
Everything still feels the same. It has it's moments but the basics are always in place. Every drive, every marker that I've seen. Proves the distance, my existence is to be a slave for you.
What about me?
We've been driving fast, driving fast for a long time. When you think it's going to break it just bends. The back nine is two years away. This is the chance that we all gave.
Somewhere I've got a brother that I've never seen. I really think I'd like to meet him and teach him the meaning of staying indoors. So please just stay bored and give me your wallet. I need your money.
What about me? How about you?
What I'm getting from this song is about a relationship - perhaps a marriage - that is falling apart and of which the narrator desperately wants out. The first stanza seems indicative of an argument. In the next stanza, the narrator talks about how he can see how long he's been in the relationship, and how it has had its moments, but nothing seems to change. The third stanza has the narrator speaking of how they've been driving fast for a long time (driving fast is often a metaphor used for recklessly engaging in a relationship without ever stopping or slowing down to examine or fix problems) and how when he thinks it's finally going to break, it just bends instead (as in, when things finally get bad enough that the thinks it's finally going to end, it doesn't, but rather continues as it has been). Finally, the narrator leaves, using the excuse that he has a brother he's never met whom he would like to, so he's going to do so.