"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.
It's gonna bite today
(Right)
To open a can of pain
(Wrong)
Sun scorched and blistering
(Run)
Do you know that it's all
(Gone)
Kiss my eyes shut to bash it in
It's just another payment
To how we live, how we dream, how we breed
Low rent up in the basement
The sky conforms to the surface
What's the purpose, everything is worthless
I feel a crack in the structure
It's time bleed through suffer
And I fall into myself
(And I fall myself, I fall)
I fall, I fall, I fall
Life keeps on pushing me under
(I am)
Ripping my whole world asunder
(I can)
Death is what keeps me in motion
(Will I)
Drown in this pain like an ocean
I'm falling down again
(Now)
Into the ground again
(Low)
Don't tell me what to do when I take you
And I'm gonna make you
You had in a moment what the rest of us
Need to believe isn't hopeless
Take a look at the scoreboard it's 1 nothing them
So I guess you need move more
We'll make a crack in the sun
If it feeds you the answer
And I fall into myself
(And I fall myself, I fall)
I fall, I fall, I fall
Life keeps on pushing me under
(I am)
Ripping my whole world asunder
(I can)
Death is what keeps me in motion
(Will I)
Drown in this pain like an ocean
All in my head but the waiting is over
Your thoughts can't tread into my disclosure
I'm just a face, nameless and silent
I'm such a waste that's why
And I can't erase I'm feeling all this
And I cannot frame and hide behind this
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
Life keeps on pushing me under
[Incomprehensible]
Ripping my whole world asunder
[Incomprehensible]
Death is what keeps me in motion
[Incomprehensible]
Drown in this pain like an ocean, kill
(Right)
To open a can of pain
(Wrong)
Sun scorched and blistering
(Run)
Do you know that it's all
(Gone)
Kiss my eyes shut to bash it in
It's just another payment
To how we live, how we dream, how we breed
Low rent up in the basement
The sky conforms to the surface
What's the purpose, everything is worthless
I feel a crack in the structure
It's time bleed through suffer
And I fall into myself
(And I fall myself, I fall)
I fall, I fall, I fall
Life keeps on pushing me under
(I am)
Ripping my whole world asunder
(I can)
Death is what keeps me in motion
(Will I)
Drown in this pain like an ocean
I'm falling down again
(Now)
Into the ground again
(Low)
Don't tell me what to do when I take you
And I'm gonna make you
You had in a moment what the rest of us
Need to believe isn't hopeless
Take a look at the scoreboard it's 1 nothing them
So I guess you need move more
We'll make a crack in the sun
If it feeds you the answer
And I fall into myself
(And I fall myself, I fall)
I fall, I fall, I fall
Life keeps on pushing me under
(I am)
Ripping my whole world asunder
(I can)
Death is what keeps me in motion
(Will I)
Drown in this pain like an ocean
All in my head but the waiting is over
Your thoughts can't tread into my disclosure
I'm just a face, nameless and silent
I'm such a waste that's why
And I can't erase I'm feeling all this
And I cannot frame and hide behind this
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
(Pain)
I did it one more time for you
And now I'm falling down again
Life keeps on pushing me under
[Incomprehensible]
Ripping my whole world asunder
[Incomprehensible]
Death is what keeps me in motion
[Incomprehensible]
Drown in this pain like an ocean, kill
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Yo La Tengo
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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,
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Ed Sheeran
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God damn great!