"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 heart is black, and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes
Let the girl, let that girl, rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
Gardens of nocturne, forbidden delights
Reins of steel, and it's alright
Cities on flame, with rock and roll
Marshal will buoy, but Fender control
So, let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
My heart is black, and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes
So, let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes
Let the girl, let that girl, rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
Gardens of nocturne, forbidden delights
Reins of steel, and it's alright
Cities on flame, with rock and roll
Marshal will buoy, but Fender control
So, let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
My heart is black, and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes
So, let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame now, with rock and roll
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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When We Were Young
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
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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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
What?? Nobody's commented on this yet?? Jeez...BOC really deserves more attention.
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what this means. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the bad reputation that rock and roll has with some some older people...the lyrics seem to speak of the genre as a forbidden thing...
It almost seems like it's sarcasm, saying that rock and roll is destroying our society or something. But then when "let the girl" lines come in, you see the real opinion without the sarcasm...
shrugs But my guess is as good as anybody's.
This is probably the heaviest and darkest BOC track. It's an absolute scorcher as the name may imply. I think it's all about the decadence of rock n' roll pretty much, and also the monolithic, detached, and monstrously obscure spin that BOC themselves are giving it.
'Gardens of nocturne, forbidden delights Reins of steel, and it's alright'
My favourite lines -
'Three thousand guitars they seem to cry My ears will melt, and then my eyes'
The verse you really like could be alluding to an acid trip, Acid was quite a popular recreational drug when the song was released.
You're pretty much spot on. Much of BOCs work is sarcastic and in reference to corruption of the earth by various forces brought here by aliens. At least much of there early work up to and through Imaginos. For another "Rock n Roll is corruption" song listen to "Dominance and Submission".
guitar solos are just great in this song.
I think it's about gangs with guitars, and his girlfriend plays for him, and start a riot with guitars.
Black Sabbath - Behind the Wall of Sleep
I see what you mean.
It may be about rocking out hard. I mean lyrics like, "Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry. My ears will melt, then my eyes." That must give us a clue that it's about rockin' out in cities.
It's about seeing rock grow throughout England like a spreading fire..... Blue Oyster Cult has a bunch of analogies like that!
The whole "evil in rock music" thing that was going on in the 80s with Tipper Gore and the Peters brothers probably wasn't as prevalent in the early 70s, but Black Sabbath most assuredly stirred up some shit. I think this is a classic BOC spin on Sabbath's perceived image by the "moral majority". I can almost picture an Ishir? Honda movie where Satan cataclysmically unleashes his influence through rockin' guitar-wielding hottie babes who seduce the Minoru Genda / Kameto Kurojima types into starting a nuclear holocaust (melting the ears & eyes). BOC is like a booster shot for the imagination. Or something...
Marshall amps and Fender guitars ftw.
It simply seems to me that rocker is saying that he's a naughty boy & let the girls come to the shows so he can have their way with them.