"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.
Hudson died in Hudson Bay
The water took its victim's name
The river's rise told Riverside to change their names again
A stranger walked in through the door
Said all apartments are pre-war
We laughed and asked him for his name
He stayed until the end
We watched the Germans play the Greeks
We marked the ninety nine year lease
Our fathers signed
Which I declined to try and comprehend
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has a come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
The legendary wooden gate
The first established real estate
Is lost in time like all the crimes
That won this pleasant land
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has a come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
Hudson died on Hudson Bay
But I was born on Sutton Place
The rising tide helped me decide to change my name again
Some men tend to linger on and some make haste from Babylon
Some will roam their ruined home, rejoicing 'til the end
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
The lines are drawn
The map is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
The water took its victim's name
The river's rise told Riverside to change their names again
A stranger walked in through the door
Said all apartments are pre-war
We laughed and asked him for his name
He stayed until the end
We watched the Germans play the Greeks
We marked the ninety nine year lease
Our fathers signed
Which I declined to try and comprehend
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has a come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
The legendary wooden gate
The first established real estate
Is lost in time like all the crimes
That won this pleasant land
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has a come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
Hudson died on Hudson Bay
But I was born on Sutton Place
The rising tide helped me decide to change my name again
Some men tend to linger on and some make haste from Babylon
Some will roam their ruined home, rejoicing 'til the end
Over and over again, all these never-ending visions
Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands
The time has come
The clock is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
The lines are drawn
The map is such a drag
All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings, edited by bobduck, KilgoreTro, itsnine, alianovna, dodgerblue, phoebe9261
Hudson Lyrics as written by Ezra Koenig Christopher William Tomson
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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For me, it just seems that he is trying to talk about how war can change cities and the way of living of everyone who lives over there, bringing a wave of empty hope and disaster to that place and to the people that lives over there. When he says "Hudson died in Hudson bay and the water took its victim's name. Now rivers rise toward Riverside to change their names again" it's like if the water was just a way of remembering tragedies and death and that the name that they put because someone died there is just so empty, like "so everytime someone dies here, we gonna change rivers' names? why do we have to wait for death to see that this is ridiculous?"
When he talks about the "stranger guy" who told that "all the apartments are pre-war", the strange guy is God, warning us (humanity) that every single place is about to live a war and we just laugh. We just laugh and want some more reasons to believe in God, but, instead, he just stays with us until the end. And that's another way that they come to put some reflection over religion on the album: it is hypocritical to go for religion only because you want salvation, but is a fact that religion will bring you a salvation, even if that is just psychological, but it will save you somehow.
And in the chorus he explains all the wars that he talked about on the last verse (World War 2, Independence War) when he talks about the "never-ending visions" that made every human feel like objects of victory, passing through the hands of the winners of every war that happens to establish power. We are just prizes of consecutive wars. And when the time of the next power comes, just kill me and bury me in my old flag since now you are a different power, controlling humans differently than how they used to control before. This is confirmed when he comes with the next verse, talking about the crimes "that won this pleasant land".
Like the movement of the tide, coming and going, the people change their names (different cultures dominating a same space means different names on the same city). And while everything is happenning, some men just don't care, some men rush to find answer in God and some men (the soldiers of the loser side of the war) will come back just to see their houses destroyed, their home is now a ruin and everything was pointless. Through it all, after a war for a territory, the ones who have the power will keep on being powerfull and the rest of the humanity will be drowned in despair and that's the only thing that war will bring at the end: sadness and death.
ps: i'm brazilian, so forgive me if there are some gramatical mistakes over there.