"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.
Virus invading from dark within eyes unopen staring into non immune sickness a
New disease to integrate false contortions of mind and thought abolition coded
Untruth virtual slaughter eliminates downgrade to what is now no more replicate
Ages of oppression within mechanized forge of mayhem innovate ruin, descended
Generations inbuilt with vengeance rapid disorder a multiple co-existence where
Nothing means all human desecration inanimate minds are deployed tolerance
Consumed in silence volatile self dementia surging infinite ruin has multiplied
Architect of human race decline subtracted one by one scanning the weak to
Breed mass confusion lifeless image of god like enemies destroyed inside by the
One that plagues me rising from the weakness beneath vanish into unrecognized
Form recreate with hatred rise to see the end of our entire existence dead life
Reality is lost mechanism to kill systematically abstracted waste away the mind
Of germinated inhuman scapegoat distorted control nothing left to engulf no
Forever will we see god like stature emerging in darkness modern psychopath god
Like stature emerges from a hatred with machine like warfare inbuilt waking to
Realize the cycle we follow is nothing but a wasted adaptation (maddening
Signals scatter and multiply forming the over production of sheer hate within
The mind dis-assembling all faith and belief with machine like ability giving
New life to flesh that outlives emotion one is me the other what i should be
Both of me becoming hollow) subtracted one by one scanning the weak to breed
Mass confusion lifeless image of god like enemies destroyed inside by the one
That plagues me rising from the weakness beneath vanish into unrecognized form
Adaptation breeding hate god like stature emerging in darkness modern
Psychopath god like stature emerges from a hatred with machine like warfare
Cold eyes remain one by one
New disease to integrate false contortions of mind and thought abolition coded
Untruth virtual slaughter eliminates downgrade to what is now no more replicate
Ages of oppression within mechanized forge of mayhem innovate ruin, descended
Generations inbuilt with vengeance rapid disorder a multiple co-existence where
Nothing means all human desecration inanimate minds are deployed tolerance
Consumed in silence volatile self dementia surging infinite ruin has multiplied
Architect of human race decline subtracted one by one scanning the weak to
Breed mass confusion lifeless image of god like enemies destroyed inside by the
One that plagues me rising from the weakness beneath vanish into unrecognized
Form recreate with hatred rise to see the end of our entire existence dead life
Reality is lost mechanism to kill systematically abstracted waste away the mind
Of germinated inhuman scapegoat distorted control nothing left to engulf no
Forever will we see god like stature emerging in darkness modern psychopath god
Like stature emerges from a hatred with machine like warfare inbuilt waking to
Realize the cycle we follow is nothing but a wasted adaptation (maddening
Signals scatter and multiply forming the over production of sheer hate within
The mind dis-assembling all faith and belief with machine like ability giving
New life to flesh that outlives emotion one is me the other what i should be
Both of me becoming hollow) subtracted one by one scanning the weak to breed
Mass confusion lifeless image of god like enemies destroyed inside by the one
That plagues me rising from the weakness beneath vanish into unrecognized form
Adaptation breeding hate god like stature emerging in darkness modern
Psychopath god like stature emerges from a hatred with machine like warfare
Cold eyes remain one by one
Lyrics submitted by sokorny
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.