"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.
Discovering America
Discovering America
With Plymouth Rock and the auction block
We were stirring up the melting pot
History is what we're told
Wounded Knee, the Alamo
Symbols of our sweat and toil
The blood was spilled, they claimed the soil
It was a new frontier
A chance to disappear in America
So innocent
Such feisty, fiery natives
Eloping in America
Eloping in America
A virgin world yet to be plucked
We moved in fast to snatch her up
The land was uninhabited
But close enough to establish it for America
The promised land
Though we broke a few to break her in
"This land is our land"
Was our declaration
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Inalienable rights for the first illegal aliens
It's our life, it's our liberty
Now let's get some happiness
Killing in America!
Killing in America!
What seemed a little crude at first
Became second nature by the third
Rape the women, drown the babes
Take the village in the name of America
"Home of the brave"
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
Living in America
Living in America
Driving in my Cherokee
To see the Redskins scalp the Chiefs
I found this tomahawk at an antique mall
So I stole it
Hung it in my room
I wonder who my tomahawk belonged to
Discovering America
With Plymouth Rock and the auction block
We were stirring up the melting pot
History is what we're told
Wounded Knee, the Alamo
Symbols of our sweat and toil
The blood was spilled, they claimed the soil
It was a new frontier
A chance to disappear in America
So innocent
Such feisty, fiery natives
Eloping in America
Eloping in America
A virgin world yet to be plucked
We moved in fast to snatch her up
The land was uninhabited
But close enough to establish it for America
The promised land
Though we broke a few to break her in
"This land is our land"
Was our declaration
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Inalienable rights for the first illegal aliens
It's our life, it's our liberty
Now let's get some happiness
Killing in America!
Killing in America!
What seemed a little crude at first
Became second nature by the third
Rape the women, drown the babes
Take the village in the name of America
"Home of the brave"
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
Living in America
Living in America
Driving in my Cherokee
To see the Redskins scalp the Chiefs
I found this tomahawk at an antique mall
So I stole it
Hung it in my room
I wonder who my tomahawk belonged to
Lyrics submitted by AtlDynasty25, edited by Mellow_Harsher
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Fast Car
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