"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.
Will all your money
Buy you forgiveness
Keep you from sickness
Or keep you from cold?
Will all your money
Keep you from madness
Keep you from sadness
When you're down in the hole?
'Cause you'll be down in the gutter
You'll be bummin' for cigarettes
Bummin' for nylons
In the American zone
You'll be down in the hole
Yeah, down in the hole
No escape from trouble
Nowhere to go
Down in the gutter
Beggin' for cigarettes
Beggin' forgiveness
All that you know
Down in the hole
After diggin' the trenches
Looking for cover and findin' out there ain't nowhere
Nowhere to go, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere to go
None of your money
Will buy you forgiveness
None of your jewelry
None of your gold
Your black market cigarettes
Your American nightclubs
Ah, they've got nowhere left
Something for nothing
All of your friends gone
Something for nothing
That's all that you know
There's something down in the hole
Down, down, down in the hole
There's something down
Down, down, down in the hole
Buy you forgiveness
Keep you from sickness
Or keep you from cold?
Will all your money
Keep you from madness
Keep you from sadness
When you're down in the hole?
'Cause you'll be down in the gutter
You'll be bummin' for cigarettes
Bummin' for nylons
In the American zone
You'll be down in the hole
Yeah, down in the hole
No escape from trouble
Nowhere to go
Down in the gutter
Beggin' for cigarettes
Beggin' forgiveness
All that you know
Down in the hole
After diggin' the trenches
Looking for cover and findin' out there ain't nowhere
Nowhere to go, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere to go
None of your money
Will buy you forgiveness
None of your jewelry
None of your gold
Your black market cigarettes
Your American nightclubs
Ah, they've got nowhere left
Something for nothing
All of your friends gone
Something for nothing
That's all that you know
There's something down in the hole
Down, down, down in the hole
There's something down
Down, down, down in the hole
Lyrics submitted by spliphstar
Down in the Hole Lyrics as written by Keith Richards Mick Jagger
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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American zone... kind of makes me think of Germans after WWII. Begging forgiveness, nowhere to go.