"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.
Under the silence of water,
Into a sky full of birds
Out from the land of our fathers,
I am falling on your words,
Oh...
Dark as the night of a preacher,
I made a bed out of hay
They paid me a handful of money,
I gave it all away...
All away...
And the righteous raised their stones
And the devil threw his arrow
That was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
In the half-life of the city,
She took off all of her clothes
I flew from the height of the mountains
Into a valley of dry bones
All alone
Then my heart was still unknown
I was drunk and full of sorrows
I was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
So, I set fires of starlight,
To burn up against the despair
I was caught in the tangles of midnight's
Long, unanswered prayer:
'Are you there?'
And the light of morning grows
On a field of fallen sparrows
I was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Into a sky full of birds
Out from the land of our fathers,
I am falling on your words,
Oh...
Dark as the night of a preacher,
I made a bed out of hay
They paid me a handful of money,
I gave it all away...
All away...
And the righteous raised their stones
And the devil threw his arrow
That was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
In the half-life of the city,
She took off all of her clothes
I flew from the height of the mountains
Into a valley of dry bones
All alone
Then my heart was still unknown
I was drunk and full of sorrows
I was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
So, I set fires of starlight,
To burn up against the despair
I was caught in the tangles of midnight's
Long, unanswered prayer:
'Are you there?'
And the light of morning grows
On a field of fallen sparrows
I was longing for a home
With nowhere to go,
Oh, Theo...
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Lyrics submitted by SamuelTorres
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Fast Car
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