"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.
Can't remember anything at all
Flame trees line the streets
Can't remember anything at all
But I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I've been sitting in my basement patio
Aye it was hot up above
Girls walk past, their roses all in bloom
Have you ever heard about the Higgs Boson Blues?
I'm going down to Geneva, baby
Gonna teach it to you
Who cares?
Who cares what the future brings?
Black road long and I drove and drove
And came upon a crossroad
The night was hot and black
I see Robert Johnson with a 10-dollar guitar
Strapped to his back looking for a tomb
Ah, well here comes Lucifer with his canon law
And a hundred black babies running from his genocidal jaw
He got the real killer groove
Robert Johnson and the devil, man
Don't know who is gonna rip off who
Driving my car, flame trees on fire
Sitting and singing the Higgs Boson Blues
I'm tired, I'm looking for a spot to drop
All the clocks have stopped
In Memphis now in the Lorraine Motel
It's hot, it's hot - that's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yeah
And making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues
And if I die tonight
Bury me in my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Ah, can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Hannah Montana does the African Savannah
As the simulated rainy season begins
She curses the queue at the Zulu's
And moves on to Amazonia
And cries with the dolphins
Mau Mau ate the pygmy
The pygmy ate the monkey
The monkey has a gift
That he is sending back to you
Look, here comes the missionary
With his smallpox and flu
He's saving them, the savages
With his Higgs Boson Blues
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
Oh let the damn day break
The rainy days always make me sad
Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake
And you're the best girl I've ever had
Can't remember anything at all
Flame trees line the streets
Can't remember anything at all
But I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I've been sitting in my basement patio
Aye it was hot up above
Girls walk past, their roses all in bloom
Have you ever heard about the Higgs Boson Blues?
I'm going down to Geneva, baby
Gonna teach it to you
Who cares?
Who cares what the future brings?
Black road long and I drove and drove
And came upon a crossroad
The night was hot and black
I see Robert Johnson with a 10-dollar guitar
Strapped to his back looking for a tomb
Ah, well here comes Lucifer with his canon law
And a hundred black babies running from his genocidal jaw
He got the real killer groove
Robert Johnson and the devil, man
Don't know who is gonna rip off who
Driving my car, flame trees on fire
Sitting and singing the Higgs Boson Blues
I'm tired, I'm looking for a spot to drop
All the clocks have stopped
In Memphis now in the Lorraine Motel
It's hot, it's hot - that's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yeah
And making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues
And if I die tonight
Bury me in my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Ah, can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Hannah Montana does the African Savannah
As the simulated rainy season begins
She curses the queue at the Zulu's
And moves on to Amazonia
And cries with the dolphins
Mau Mau ate the pygmy
The pygmy ate the monkey
The monkey has a gift
That he is sending back to you
Look, here comes the missionary
With his smallpox and flu
He's saving them, the savages
With his Higgs Boson Blues
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
Oh let the damn day break
The rainy days always make me sad
Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake
And you're the best girl I've ever had
Can't remember anything at all
Lyrics submitted by smallwonderrobot, edited by DrunkFly, dickymoore
Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics as written by Warren Ellis Nicholas Cave
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Mute Song Limited
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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You need to know a little about the Higgs Boson, and a little about Nick Cave to get this song. Nick is not a typical Christian, but he is a Christian, so the spiritual decay he sees is not some request to put prayer in schools, or for people to follow his religion or something, it is a deeper, existential crisis in modern society. The Higgs Boson is called the "God particle" because it is an attempt by physics to find the most elementary particle, the particle that is essentially at the bottom of everything. Now that they've found it, there is no fulfillment, nothing is better, and the spiritual crises is still there, God particle or no. It's an existential emptiness type thing. Lines like "saving the savages with the Higgs Boson blues" are easily explained by reading people like Christopher Hitchens writing about howt he Iraq war was a good idea to civilize people, and bring them our wonderful, perfect modern ways of life and views. The references to MIley Cyrus are obvious, she is a great poster child of our empty, fame-groping, celebrity obsessed pop culture.
@ZachZinn , In 20,000 Days on Earth Nick states, quite clearly, that he does not believe in any sort of God.
Nick Cave's relationship with religion and God has always been quite complex. He was brought up Anglican but didn't identify very much with the God that was presented to him. He talks in lot of his early interviews of a more personal identification with God, removed from the dogmatic trappings of church services. He's also talked a great deal over the years about his doubts, and in one interview said specifically, “I don’t think a person truly believes unless they doubt as well. My faith kind of swells up and subsides”. <br /> <br /> Whatever his specific beliefs are at any given point in time, he's always drawn inspiration from religion and spirituality in his work, and it's ok to interpret his work through that lens as chances are that really was what he was going for.