"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.
The key is so distant
I've opened doors
Know when to listen
Know what to listen for (yeah)
The shelf in the room
Has been the way of holding me
And letting me stay
Kick me out
Let me go
I don't belong here no more
A releasing sense of getting tired
Hold myself
I can't hold myself
The shelf in the room
Has been so true
I can hide in
The shelf in the room
Holding out
Never hold in
Holding out
Never hold
Know when to listen
Know what to listen for
Believe in resistance
Don't let them tell you anymore
Is there anyway/no
To get away/no
Ask myself
While I stay inside
The key is so distant
I've closed my doors
The shelf in the room
Is rain waiting to pour
I've opened doors
Know when to listen
Know what to listen for (yeah)
The shelf in the room
Has been the way of holding me
And letting me stay
Kick me out
Let me go
I don't belong here no more
A releasing sense of getting tired
Hold myself
I can't hold myself
The shelf in the room
Has been so true
I can hide in
The shelf in the room
Holding out
Never hold in
Holding out
Never hold
Know when to listen
Know what to listen for
Believe in resistance
Don't let them tell you anymore
Is there anyway/no
To get away/no
Ask myself
While I stay inside
The key is so distant
I've closed my doors
The shelf in the room
Is rain waiting to pour
Lyrics submitted by spliphstar
Shelf in the Room Lyrics as written by Travis Shane Meeks
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"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"
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
This song is about the singer's fear of the outside... the shelf in the room is his way of curling up and disappearing from everything, from all the activity, all the forces he cannot understand and is afraid to face. he's "closed his doors" but also realizes that it is "rain waiting to pour..." indicating that eventually his shelf will collapse and he will be sent back into the workd he so desparately wants to escape. He wants to leave from the place he knows, "Kick me out, let me go" cries Travis, as he is overwhelmed by a "releasing sense of getting tired" and wants only to retreat to the confines of his established, predictable, and safe world.
IE that is how he feels when he is on drugs. basically this song is about drug addiction, like all the songs. lol
Since Meeks has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, I think your interpretation is absolutely spot-on.
This is not about any one event. It is about realizing why we are who we are. The shelf in the room could be anything, husband, father, wife anything. He is saying THIS is who I am but it is because of the shelf. I have never wanted to face the reality of the situation. I can see now that my beliefs differ. If you asked someone how come they voted a certain way and their answer is because of the way I was raised, because of my parents, you have a shelf. A habit that you have adopted for ease, not one you realized for your self.
I'm fairly certain he said somewhere that this song is about how he had this shelf that he would put trinkets and stuff on it when he was a kid. It had these trees that he would put on it. That's where the tree thing came from. It was his way of coping with life for a while. He would just rearrange the setting. So it was basically a shelf in the room.
If only they got back together
this was the first DotN song i ever heard and still my favorite... it's like you know what you have to do and know you have a place to come back to, but you just have to leave right now.
This song about unhealthy vice and addiction calls to heart that which holds us back in life
@binkyonsixstring You're the first person who hit the nail on the head and that ive seen here to put the exact meaning behind the song and its metaphorical title. As a musician and freelance lyricist, and addict myself, I can understand and decipher the meaning behind even the trickiest of lyrical metaphors, such as Kurt Cobain was a master of.
I like this song, too. Right now, Travis is suffering from an addiction to crystal meth, which is why he hasn't put out much for music in the last few years expect a couple of bootleg albums.
@OpinionHead Exactamundo!
I think crowell nailed this one on the head. Ive always liked this song. I just heard it on the radio, so I thought Id come here and see what other people think. Sadly, only a few people seem to know this song. Thats a shame, since Days were a really good band.
yeah, rob got this one. his explanation all made since. this is an awesome song and an awesome band. keep rockin days!
This song reminds me of when I was at my old house all happy in my old room And organising my movies cds & tapes