"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.
My head was warm my skin was soaked
I called your name 'til the fever broke
When I awoke the moon still hung
The night so black that the darkness hums
I raised myself my legs were weak
I prayed my mind be good to me
An awful noise filled the air
I heard a scream in the woods somewhere
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
A woman's voice i quickly ran
Into the trees with empty hands a fox it was
He shook afraid
I spoke no words, no sound he made
His bone exposed his hind was lame
I raised a stone to end his pain
What caused the wound? How large the teeth?
I saw new eyes were watching me
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
The creature lunged i turned and ran
To save a life I didn't have
Dear, in the chase there as I flew
Forgot all prayers of joining you
I clutched my life and wished it kept
My dearest love, I'm not done yet
How many years i know I'll bear
I found something in the woods somewhere
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
I called your name 'til the fever broke
When I awoke the moon still hung
The night so black that the darkness hums
I raised myself my legs were weak
I prayed my mind be good to me
An awful noise filled the air
I heard a scream in the woods somewhere
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
A woman's voice i quickly ran
Into the trees with empty hands a fox it was
He shook afraid
I spoke no words, no sound he made
His bone exposed his hind was lame
I raised a stone to end his pain
What caused the wound? How large the teeth?
I saw new eyes were watching me
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
The creature lunged i turned and ran
To save a life I didn't have
Dear, in the chase there as I flew
Forgot all prayers of joining you
I clutched my life and wished it kept
My dearest love, I'm not done yet
How many years i know I'll bear
I found something in the woods somewhere
Ooh, oo ooh, oo ooh
Lyrics submitted by tallsan, edited by teaspill, Uranium, swaghetti_prim
In the Woods Somewhere Lyrics as written by Andrew Hozier Byrne
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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I really love @teaspill's interpretation. I admit my interpretation is pretty nonsensical but here goes:
In the first stanza, I took it to be death which broke the fever. The last positive impression the narrator has is of light, of the moon, which appears to be the same in both life and death. However, now all else is extinguished and the darkness--purgatory--is becoming tangible around them. Whether or not this narrator was suffering from an illness or addiction, I couldn't positively say, but I second the addiction idea, to finally succumb to death in the grip of hallucination.
When the narrator next awoke, it was in purgatory. There's nothing around them except the light and the forest, which calls them forward with the horrible noise: a scream from life permeating the narrator's state of consciousness in death. In this warped sort of reality, the narrator seeks the noise and in doing so is seeking a way back their body.
A woman's voice! I quickly ran Into the trees with empty hands. A fox it was, He shook afraid. I spoke no words, No sound he made. The fox, being the deceiver in this narrative, has pulled this person fully into purgatory and away from the light. It presents itself as precursor to what the narrator will encounter.
Then, here: What caused the wound? How large the teeth? I saw new eyes were watching me. The narrator begins to realize what is happening
The creature lunged. I turned and ran To save a life I didn't have. Dear, in the chase There as I flew Forgot all prayers of joining you. For me, this is where the narrator fully realizes they're doomed. They realize there is no escape and all thoughts of joining their loved ones are extinguished.
I clutched my life And wished it kept. My dearest love, I'm not done yet. How many years I know I'll bear. I found something in the woods somewhere. The narrator wishes to have returned to life but realizes that their time in purgatory isn't done yet. Then, like some twisted Sisyphus, they repeat, finding the fox and the creatures in the woods again and repeating the hallucination in their death for years.
I don't know if this makes sense to anyone but me but there it is!