"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.
Rotten device, I'll say it twice
I'm too much, I'm too much comforted here
Costs too much, too much, we'll leave you
Everywhere eyes, nowhere to die
No place to shove your sharpened heel
I'm looking, looking for a tired face
In case you wanted to go
I know, I'm breathing in to the end
Calling the bluffs, talking so tough
Goodbye to the ugly steeple fear
Good times for ever after
I'm just a man, you see who I am
I'm binding my hooks and open the books
Dirty black hearts
Angel of Corpus Christi
You're so mystic
Tell me what I want to hear
I know I'm reeling in
I know I'm reeling in
To the end
To the end
To the end
To the end
I know I'll never know
I know I'll never know
I'm too much, I'm too much comforted here
Costs too much, too much, we'll leave you
Everywhere eyes, nowhere to die
No place to shove your sharpened heel
I'm looking, looking for a tired face
In case you wanted to go
I know, I'm breathing in to the end
Calling the bluffs, talking so tough
Goodbye to the ugly steeple fear
Good times for ever after
I'm just a man, you see who I am
I'm binding my hooks and open the books
Dirty black hearts
Angel of Corpus Christi
You're so mystic
Tell me what I want to hear
I know I'm reeling in
I know I'm reeling in
To the end
To the end
To the end
To the end
I know I'll never know
I know I'll never know
Lyrics submitted by weezerific:cutlery
Father to a Sister of Thought Lyrics as written by Stephen Malkmus
Lyrics © Hipgnosis Songs Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Hm, you all have smart things to say about it. I LOVE this song. The CD single is one of my favorite recorded things ever: this song, then the song about the ladies at the beach club on a Sunday afternoon (clucking lowly like enemy platoons), then a freakin' great Spiral Stairs song about Pelican Beach being closed. Great cover to the CD single too.
So . . . anyway, I've kind of vaguely thought it was about fear of marriage? That is, fear of committing and settling down. I guess because a lot of SM's songs from this era seem to be about that subject, and I think I read an interview once where he said that "Rattled by the Rush" was about fear of marriage. If you look at "We Are Underused" from Brighten the Corners, that one seems to be about what he's afraid he'll become after he gets married: a boring, "underused" middle class person who's worried about stupid things.
So, my lyrical evidence:
(1) "Ugly steeple fear" is fear of going to the church to get married. "
(2) Rotten device": he's defensively accusing his girlfriend of trying to trick him into getting married (hey, it happens--i.e. women do it, and men imagine it). Then he says a bunch of mean things about her (her sharpened heel, how he's looking around for someone else in case she breaks up with him because he won't ask her to get married).
(3) "Calling the bluffs," "talking tough," he's talking about how his girlfriend has, in effect, said, "well, if you love me, why won't you marry me?", and implicitly threatened breakup if they don't get married.
(4) "Good times forever after," that's the myth of marriage.
(5) "I'm just a man / you see who I am," he's saying, "I'm really quite simple, I want comfort without commitment."
But the hooks, books, angel of Corpus Christi, I don't really know how that fits in. If someone wants to connect A to Z for me here, I'd love to hear it.