"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.
We are a broken wreck
We've both got piles of regrets
There ain't nothin' you can say or prove
I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
So if there's any doubt
I will throw you a line
Excuses, excuses
Don't ever remind me
How it isn't all it will be
There ain't nothin' you can say or prove
That I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
You've been this way before
Shadows here all know you
I don't know what you've heard
Or what it is inside you
We are all around you
We are all around you
We are all around you
If love comes first
Maybe our lives will dissolve
Young fruit, still not bruised
Hey, maybe, just maybe,
We all made our moves
And mine could've helped you
I could've helped you
We are a broken wreck
We've both got piles of regrets
We are a broken wreck
We've both got piles of regrets
There ain't nothing you can say to prove
That I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
This is impossible
We've both got piles of regrets
There ain't nothin' you can say or prove
I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
So if there's any doubt
I will throw you a line
Excuses, excuses
Don't ever remind me
How it isn't all it will be
There ain't nothin' you can say or prove
That I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
You've been this way before
Shadows here all know you
I don't know what you've heard
Or what it is inside you
We are all around you
We are all around you
We are all around you
If love comes first
Maybe our lives will dissolve
Young fruit, still not bruised
Hey, maybe, just maybe,
We all made our moves
And mine could've helped you
I could've helped you
We are a broken wreck
We've both got piles of regrets
We are a broken wreck
We've both got piles of regrets
There ain't nothing you can say to prove
That I held the rope that let you down
As we crash into the waves and drown
This is impossible
This is impossible
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A relationship that perhaps they feel responsible for allowing to dissolve. They held the rope to rescue the situation, but instead let them down (the song sort of suggests that they didn't really want to rescue the situation anyway).
The song title to me sort of suggests the internal struggle going on within that person, trying to come to grips that perhaps they intended the relationship to fail (but they are trying to simultaneously refuse that truth).