"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.
I'm stressed but you're freestyle
I'm overworked but I'm undersexed
I must be made of concrete
I sign my name across your chest
Give out the same old answers
I trot them out for the relatives
Company tried and tested
I use the ones that I love the best
Like an animal you're moving over me
Like an animal you're moving over me
When did I get perverted
I can't remember your name
I'm growing introverted
You touch my hand and it's not the same
This was so unexpected
I never thought I'd get caught
Play boomerang with your demons
Shoot to kill and you'll pop them off
Bang! Bang!
Like an animal you're moving over me
Like an animal you're moving over me
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
When I walked in the room
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
Your eyes light up
When I walk in the room
A hammering in my head don't stop
From the bullet train
From Tokyo to Los Angeles
I'm leaving you behind
A flash in the pan
A storm in a teacup
A needle in a haystack
A prize for the winning
A dead for the raising
A catch for the chasing
A jewel for the choosing
A man for the making in this blistering heat
Sweat it all out
Sweat it all out
With your bedroom eyes and your baby pouts
Sweat it all out
In our electric storms and our shifting sands
Our candy jars and our sticky hands
Sweat it all out [Repeat: x6]
Don't forget what I wrote you then
And don't forget what I told you then
And don't forget I that meant to win
And don't forget your Ventolin
So a hammering in my head don't stop
In the bullet train from Tokyo to Los Angeles.
I'm overworked but I'm undersexed
I must be made of concrete
I sign my name across your chest
Give out the same old answers
I trot them out for the relatives
Company tried and tested
I use the ones that I love the best
Like an animal you're moving over me
Like an animal you're moving over me
When did I get perverted
I can't remember your name
I'm growing introverted
You touch my hand and it's not the same
This was so unexpected
I never thought I'd get caught
Play boomerang with your demons
Shoot to kill and you'll pop them off
Bang! Bang!
Like an animal you're moving over me
Like an animal you're moving over me
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
You should be sleeping my love
Tell me what you're dreaming of
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
When I walked in the room
I knew you were mine for the taking
I knew you were mine for the taking
Your eyes light up
When I walk in the room
A hammering in my head don't stop
From the bullet train
From Tokyo to Los Angeles
I'm leaving you behind
A flash in the pan
A storm in a teacup
A needle in a haystack
A prize for the winning
A dead for the raising
A catch for the chasing
A jewel for the choosing
A man for the making in this blistering heat
Sweat it all out
Sweat it all out
With your bedroom eyes and your baby pouts
Sweat it all out
In our electric storms and our shifting sands
Our candy jars and our sticky hands
Sweat it all out [Repeat: x6]
Don't forget what I wrote you then
And don't forget what I told you then
And don't forget I that meant to win
And don't forget your Ventolin
So a hammering in my head don't stop
In the bullet train from Tokyo to Los Angeles.
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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.
"give out the same old answrs, i trot them out for the relatives, company tried and tested," is an admitted attempt to pass as normal to those outside your private life. This song is about secret perversions, contrasted to the public life and manson's reaction to the events that take place in the shadows of her life, where no one but her and a few others are privelidged to see.