"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.
Is there anyone out there?
Or am I walking alone?
When I turned around and found that you'd gone before
The first rain could fall
It seems every single time I was bleeding
Broken promises that never came true
Well it ain't so long before the dawn
When the sun is gone so are
Well, so are you
So what's it gonna take
To get you back in bed?
Gossip, drugs, and snakes
They're just our best fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
Fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
One day when we're far away
From everything that hurts
Drink and screw is all we'll do
Every day
So what's it gonna take
To get you back in bed?
Gossip, drugs, and snakes
They're just our best fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
And though the hour's late
Don't let 'em in your head (fair weather friends)
Gonna pray for rain again and again
Fair weather friends
Fair weather friends
Fair I don't give a shit about 'em anyhow
Or am I walking alone?
When I turned around and found that you'd gone before
The first rain could fall
It seems every single time I was bleeding
Broken promises that never came true
Well it ain't so long before the dawn
When the sun is gone so are
Well, so are you
So what's it gonna take
To get you back in bed?
Gossip, drugs, and snakes
They're just our best fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
Fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
One day when we're far away
From everything that hurts
Drink and screw is all we'll do
Every day
So what's it gonna take
To get you back in bed?
Gossip, drugs, and snakes
They're just our best fair weather friends (fair weather friends)
And though the hour's late
Don't let 'em in your head (fair weather friends)
Gonna pray for rain again and again
Fair weather friends
Fair weather friends
Fair I don't give a shit about 'em anyhow
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings, edited by Grape31, sbutros1, sparna, SilentAssassin, Cassabian, MilkManMike, TheBronze, wh33ls
Fairweather Friends Lyrics as written by Josh Homme Dean Anthony Fertita
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
worth noting that this is the second time that "drink wine and screw" has come in a Queens song, the first being "walking on the sidewalk"
Self explanatory tale of non platonic friends with benefits. The ending is amusing because Josh sort of mocks the cheesiness or cliche in the over-usage of said motive in lyrics.
"Drink and screw"
i'd like to believe this is a reference to walkin' on the sidewalks
I was just about to post that! Yeah, I doubt it's just a coincidence.
Whoops...here I am thinking what a jerk he just copied what I said hahaha
Assorted observations: As other commenters have mentioned, "drink wine and screw" also appears in the lyrics to "Walkin' On The Sidewalks" off their first record. Although he later backtracked, Homme credited said eponymous record as an influence on the current one. Secondly, "It ain't so long before the dawn, when the sun is gone so are you," transitions into "gonna pray for rain again and again," which suggests that he might actually welcome the storm if it reveals who his true friends are.
Less apparent is how these references relate to "My God Is The Sun." I have difficulty understanding that track anyway, but this track certainly seems to mark a shift in his attitude toward the sun. The best I can do is to suggest that he regards the sun, and god, and possibly fate, as among the "fairweather friends" which he's cutting ties with. The opening lines could as easily relate to the sun as to another person. The sun also combusts vampires, who seem to be a theme on this album. Some have suggested that Homme regards himself as literally undead after dying on the operating table, and a traditional vampire would certainly prefer rain to sunny skies. "The Vampire of Time and Memory" seems to conceptualize a vampire as something feeding on human misery, and the metaphorical rain in this song does represent said misery. That's all I got. Anyone else know anything?
Thanks for that...I really dont like the vampire (great song and totally necessary to the album but its just not what I would expect from Queens) but I think that if I view it in this light I could come to really like it...neat take on the album
Seeing Mark lanegan in writing credits we must assume it has something to do with getting Mark clean from heroin and away from his lifestyle.
Kinda like when Dulli wrote "Bonnie Brae" for Mark some years ago now
100% correct lyrics from the ...Like Clockwork LP:
Is there anyone out there? Or am I just walking alone? When I turned around and found that you'd gone before the first rain could fall
It seems every single time I was bleeding Broken promises that never came true It ain't so long before the dawn When the sun is gone so are you
So what's it gonna take to get you back in bed? Gossips, frauds and snakes They're just our best fair-weather friends
One day when we're far away from everything that hurts Drink wine and screw is all we do everyday
So what's it gonna take to get you back in bed? Gossips, frauds and snakes They're just our best fair-weather friends
You know the hour's late Don't let 'em in your head I'm gonna pray for rain again & again
Fairweather friends Goodbye blue sky
Meh, I prefer "drugs" instead of "frauds". Matches my interpretation ;)<br />
This song seems to be about that kind of friend thar stills by your side only in the good moments, but when you really need them, when you're passing by some real problem in your life, or a dark moment, like Josh was with his cirurgy, and his death-experience, these fairweather friends go away, they're gone in the first chance, before the first rain fall.
It seems like almost all of this album talks about the people who might have deserted him in a time of need. People he wants but that don't want to stick around for the hard times, those unwilling to give up their self-centered or materialistic ways to help someone out.
I had read, before hearing this song, that it included many guest artists, including Elton John and Trent Reznor. I guess I just started off with the assumption that it was about friends in the music industry, both musicians and suits. However, it's really about the fans. They love you while you're hot, and give you tons of money. And it was never about having the most fans, at the beginning. It was about making the best music. So, we can hope for rain every day, if that means making great music, even if none of the fans love it. We never gave a shit about them anyhow.
The kind of aesthetically emotional tirade that could only be of a birth child of Elton John and Josh Homme. If you’re going to sit and enjoy the resentful energy of Fairweather friends you absolutely must folliw it up with I Appear Missing