"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.
This is where it starts, right here, square one
Head for the door back to the west coast
Setting sail on concrete oceans
Feel the hills roll on engulfed in flames
Where red woods tower over me
Where there's so much more than we think there is to see
I'll lead a life of firsts on foreign soils
Somewhere that I can find the bones of a better man inside
(Somewhere that I can find)
Holding in tightly to the misery will never get me far
It will never get you far
As I exhale this breath of fresh air
I feel the distance tear the space between us
Cause we're always climbing toward the sun
But the cabin pressure gets to me
And there's so much more than we think there is to see
On to barren land and wasted weeks but we won't keep searching
We're fucking helpless
And I feel the staleness in the autumn air, it's not like usual
It's fucking hopeless
I'll lead a life of firsts on foreign soils
Somewhere that I can find the bones of a better man inside
(Somewhere that I can find)
Holding in tightly to the misery will never get me far
It will never get you far
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
(I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen)
Head for the door back to the west coast
Setting sail on concrete oceans
Feel the hills roll on engulfed in flames
Where red woods tower over me
Where there's so much more than we think there is to see
I'll lead a life of firsts on foreign soils
Somewhere that I can find the bones of a better man inside
(Somewhere that I can find)
Holding in tightly to the misery will never get me far
It will never get you far
As I exhale this breath of fresh air
I feel the distance tear the space between us
Cause we're always climbing toward the sun
But the cabin pressure gets to me
And there's so much more than we think there is to see
On to barren land and wasted weeks but we won't keep searching
We're fucking helpless
And I feel the staleness in the autumn air, it's not like usual
It's fucking hopeless
I'll lead a life of firsts on foreign soils
Somewhere that I can find the bones of a better man inside
(Somewhere that I can find)
Holding in tightly to the misery will never get me far
It will never get you far
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen
(I'll leave this all behind for you when I'm gone
You grew from a seed
Forever strong as a pine tree
Always an evergreen)
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Fast Car
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mountain Song
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
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"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Punchline
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American Town
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