"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.
Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There's an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He has packed all his things
And he's put them in boxes
Things that remind him that life has been good
Twenty five years he's worked at the paper
A man's here to take him downstairs
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
There was no party and there were no songs
Cause today's just a day like the day that he started
And no one is left here that knows his first name
Yeah, and life barrels on like a runaway train
Where the passengers change
They don't change anything
You get off
Someone else can get on
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
The streetlight it shines through the haze
Casting lines on the floor
And lines on his face
He reflects on the day
Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement
Projecting some slides onto a plain white canvas
And traces it
Fills in the spaces
He turns off the slides
And it doesn't look right
Yeah, and all of these bastards have taken his place
He's forgotten but not yet gone
And I'm sorry Mr Jones
And I'm sorry Mr Jones
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
There's an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He has packed all his things
And he's put them in boxes
Things that remind him that life has been good
Twenty five years he's worked at the paper
A man's here to take him downstairs
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
There was no party and there were no songs
Cause today's just a day like the day that he started
And no one is left here that knows his first name
Yeah, and life barrels on like a runaway train
Where the passengers change
They don't change anything
You get off
Someone else can get on
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
The streetlight it shines through the haze
Casting lines on the floor
And lines on his face
He reflects on the day
Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement
Projecting some slides onto a plain white canvas
And traces it
Fills in the spaces
He turns off the slides
And it doesn't look right
Yeah, and all of these bastards have taken his place
He's forgotten but not yet gone
And I'm sorry Mr Jones
And I'm sorry Mr Jones
And I'm sorry Mr Jones, it's time
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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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"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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.
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.
i dunno...this song makes me so sad...its sooo good but for some reason, i think everyone can find a way that it relates to ANYthing thats bothering them...breaking up w/ a gf/bf, getting fired, feeling unwanted, gettin dumped for another guy, being replaced by someone...what a song
is fred jones a real person? because the ben folds five song cigarette involves a character called fred jones who stops his wife from burning the house down, or something like that. so i think it may be based on a real guy, maybe, i don't know. good song anyways.
@xpankfrisst Toward the end of livefromhere.org/shows/2018/06/16/ben-folds-wye-oak-dave-hill , Folds introduces "Fred Jones, Pt. 2" as being about a hero of his growing up, the editor of a local newspaper who eventually got fired. Assume Folds wasn't messing with the audience, that'd mean these are likely two different "Fred Jones"es. The common name is presumably artistic license, the common thread being domestic desperation and the newspaper. Given that background, Folds no doubt agrees with Jones' resentment for being unceremoniously let go from a job he devoted most of his adulthood to.
surely about half the songs ben has written have people's names in.. they can't all be real, surely? i have often wondered though.
this song makes me so sad. when the harmony comes in near the end, it makes me want to cry. it really does.
the song is saying how awful it is to be replaced i think. and how good things have to end, even if you don't want them too.
sooo sad.
Fred Jones was a real person. The lyrics in the song "Cigarette" were actually the words from a short article in a paper that Ben read and he just made a song out of it. As far as this song goes, it's about the same Fred Jones but I'm pretty sure it's not a true story. And a lot of the people in Ben's songs are real people, by the way. :-)
This is a great song that really gets me every time i hear it. I bought the CD for Rockin' the Suburbs which is a good song but i was blown away by this and carrying cathy. As well as being touching and a great song to listen to is also brings in one of my favorite singers : John McCrea from CAKE! they are both great in this song!
Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement Projecting some slides onto a plain white Canvas and traces it Fills in the spaces He turns off the slides, and it doesn't look right Yeah, and all of these bastards Have taken his place He's forgotten but not yet gone
;(
God Bless Ben Folds :D
Beautiful, sad song...about the inevitability of all good things coming to an end...it also has hints of death in its lyrics. Probably my favourite off "Rockin' The Suburbs." "Streetlight shines through the shades / Casting lines on the floor, and lines on his face / He reflects on the day" - I especially love this bit.
For me, the message of the song boils down to:
No one in the world cares about you. No parties, no songs, nothing's new about the day - just you're gone, only no one notices because no one's left who knows your name. You go home angry, try to imitate art, it fails you, everything fails you, and at the end the only card you still hold is that you're still alive.
What can you possibly do? After all, the world is so big...
this song just makes me wanna cry. i mean its basically about a guy getting fired from his job but the way ben folds writes it just makes it so incredibly sad. it goes much deeper than the surface. when i get a job ill be sure to make an impression upon people so when im there i wont be ignored and when im gone i wont be forgotten. i dont want to end up like fred jones.
I agree with most of what everyone has already said.
About the people being real. .. I wouldnt say a LOT of the people are real, but quite a few of them are. At least for Ben Folds Five anyway.. ie Eddie Walker, Alice Childress..
As for the song. I disagree somewhat with your name here. i think it's about Fred getting fired, but i also think it alludes to Fred's death. .. It's time for his death, and yet there's so much he hasnt done... I agree with Renzoku. We're all fairly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. How sad.
The music in this song is absolutely gorgeous. Props to Larry Corbett on the cello.. and of course Ben on the piano. :)
yah I agree with everyone, at his concert he said that part one is the first line he read in a newspaper artical that was really long and inncorrect so he wrote a song about it...