"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 body dances to the beat of the noises from the street
As patterns grids and schedules go, we took a subway to the show
So give us this day our daily commute
On the bus in three piece suits
Say goodbye, kiss and ride
On the way to the club, look outside
The movement kills in several ways, although we see it as delay
The steering wheel, a guillotine
The body dances to the beat
"Take the subway, fuck the street"
The flesh twists between the gap and passengers are also trapped
Inertia pushed them all along, but they won't make it to their next stop
Patrons complain about the wait
While the man outside can't feel his legs, "Just pull me out, save my life"
But all the cops can do is phone his wife
She drives as fast as she can and gets caught up in a traffic jam
As patterns grids and schedules go, we took a subway to the show
So give us this day our daily commute
On the bus in three piece suits
Say goodbye, kiss and ride
On the way to the club, look outside
The movement kills in several ways, although we see it as delay
The steering wheel, a guillotine
The body dances to the beat
"Take the subway, fuck the street"
The flesh twists between the gap and passengers are also trapped
Inertia pushed them all along, but they won't make it to their next stop
Patrons complain about the wait
While the man outside can't feel his legs, "Just pull me out, save my life"
But all the cops can do is phone his wife
She drives as fast as she can and gets caught up in a traffic jam
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More Featured Meanings
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"
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
"take the subway, fuck the street"... among my favorite lyrics of all time. nice song - sounds happy, isn't... typical faint.
Along the lines of Cars Pass in Cold Blood, I love the reference to the impatience and seeming unempathy to accidents in transit.
the sweet, sad irony at the end brings me to tears. great songwriting. crazy beats. the faint rock the fuck out.
Reminds me of Boston traffic and public transit.
Reminds me of Boston traffic and public transit.
love this song, if you listen carefully aftereach of the things said within the brackets you will hear 'the human arrives, sealed'
song is basically about a crash that could have easily been avoided by taking the street and not the subway, obviously this appears on a much larger scale in real life, every day situations, all of our choices in life contribute to our future and therefore our death.
This reminds me of that episode of some cop drama, before Vincent D'Onofrio(sp?) hit it with Criminal Intent, where the guy gets hit with the subway car, and it twists his body. He's alive, but the second they move the car out of the way he'll die, so he's just I think waiting on his wife actually, to say goodbye before they basically kill him. This episode was a HUGE DEAL.
"So give us this day our daily commute"
reminds me of the part of the Lord's prayer that says: Give us this day our daily bread
Yeah, it reminds me of Sealed Human too. and def not normal Faint, it's such a happy, major sounding background.
^^^^^I meant Cars Pass in Cold Blood!!^^^