"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.
They say misery loves company
We could start a company and make misery
Frustrated, Incorporated
I know just what you need
I might just have the thing
I know what you'd pay to see
Put me out of my misery
I'd do it for you, would you do it for me?
We will always be busy making misery
We could build a factory
And make misery
We'll create the cure
We made the disease
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated
I know just what you need
I might just have the thing
I know what you'd pay to feel
Put me out of my misery
All you suicide kings and you drama queens
Forever after happily, making misery
Now, did you satisfy your greed?
Get what you need?
Was it only envy?
So empty
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated (put me out of my misery)
Frustrated, Incorporated (I'd do it for you, would you do it for me?)
Frustrated, Frustrated, Frustrated
He's sitting
We could start a company and make misery
Frustrated, Incorporated
I know just what you need
I might just have the thing
I know what you'd pay to see
Put me out of my misery
I'd do it for you, would you do it for me?
We will always be busy making misery
We could build a factory
And make misery
We'll create the cure
We made the disease
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated
I know just what you need
I might just have the thing
I know what you'd pay to feel
Put me out of my misery
All you suicide kings and you drama queens
Forever after happily, making misery
Now, did you satisfy your greed?
Get what you need?
Was it only envy?
So empty
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated
Frustrated, Incorporated (put me out of my misery)
Frustrated, Incorporated (I'd do it for you, would you do it for me?)
Frustrated, Frustrated, Frustrated
He's sitting
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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"
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
No no no. This is a song about the music industry, specifically the rock scene how it was in 1995, after Nirvana. What were bands like Soul Asylum doing but exploiting their own misery and selling it to poor unhappy teens? Pain and angst were really popular at the time. To underline the point, I believe the music video was a factory boxing up a whole bunch of Soul Asylum CDs.
Further more, the song is about its about Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Kurt pulled the trigger in April 94, the song came out in June 95.<br /> Lets review; <br /> "Frustrated, Incorporated" - Nirvana and the whole Grunge scene<br /> "Well I know just what you need, I might just have the thing, I know what you'd pay to see" - Kurt<br /> "We could build a factory and make misery, We'll create the cure; we made the disease" Grunge and the record industry<br /> "Suicide kings and drama queens" - Kurt and Courtney<br />
you are absolutely right. the part where he says I know what you'd pay to feel<br /> <br /> Put me out of my misery<br /> All you suicide kings and you drama queens<br /> Who will pay? its us the fans who pay for the music.<br /> I always listened to this as a "love" song where I used to relate it to my ex girl friend who was always "making misery"<br /> Damn after 20 years I realized the true meaning of the song. Well its just an example of how one can intepret these "miserable" songs to be miserable.
if you think about the lyrics, it's pretty much true... misery loves company ... and the only way you can be put out of misery is if someone helped you thru it... comforted you.. etc etc ~ also, it's sort of like betrayal, friend being betrayd, because it says "did you satisfy your greed, get what you need"... so basically... yepsk ^_^ someone got betrayed [singer]
cherub, this may just be a stretched out bad pun if you don't understand the song, but if you had a brain you'd see this song is actually a knockout punch at the american /world pharmicutical business and how $$ is more important than lives
wow i never saw it like that your so right!
anti-deperessants and uthenesia
Frustrated Incorporated (Put me out of my misery) Frustrated Incorporated (I'd do it for you, would you do it for me) Frustrated Incorporated
not that the government cares that much i mean their all fearing the day that baby-boomers become pensioners, they need all the deaths they can get so the "pensioner - taxpayers" rate is in balence
and its true. were getting all these uppers and downer tablets but suiside is still on the rise
The ending of Clerks II made me rethink what this song is about. At the end the two main characters have their own company, they get to do what they want. Sure it's a shitty job but they're in control of it.
I think this song is all about closure, everybody aspires to be something bigger to contribute to this "greater good" that they think exists. It's only when they're miserable that they realize how miniscule their own issues are. When they realize this they want to open up everybody elses eyes, making misery for other people so they can have a clearer outlook on their own lives.
incu, I like your interpretation. I am against that cause: pharms going for $$ and destroying lives, with all my life. and the song could have that take on it. Not sure if that's what soul asylum intended -- your take sounds like a more intellectual concern -- but it could have been that. Considering the target audience was not harvard med students(:D), the teen angst interpretation is a bit more relevant, but i like your interpreation a lot.
The first comment mentioned this, but everyone else is looking for some wider ranging theme. My take has always been that this song is about a relationship, and a bad one at that. The two people in the relationship make each other miserable, yet they can't pull themselves apart. They are so good at making each other miserable (we made the disease), that they might as well try and turn it into a business. They are still hopeful (we'll create a cure), but the singer is recognizing that their misery is so ingrained, it is actually incorporated into their relationship, which is another play on the incorporated aspect. The singer also wants something different (put me out of my misery), but doesn't know how to take the first step (I'd do it for you, would you do it for me). The suicide kings and drama queens line refers to the types of people who enter into these destructive relationships. The forever after is a play on the marriage vows that a couple would take, having committed to their mutual misery without realizing where it would take them. The last verse, "Did you satisfy your greed, get what you need/Was it only envy, so empty," is the singer questioning his partner, whose motives for entering into the relationship might be suspect. Maybe she saw him as a happy person and was envious, but brought out the worst in him. Certainly the repetition of "frustrated, incorporated" seems to make sense in a bad relationship context, where you are committed to a structure, but you have incorporated your sexual frustration into that structure.
This song is one of my favourites. I really like the lyrics to the song. Soul Asylum rocks too.
I just saw Clerks II this weekend and this is the song they played as it ended and went into the credits. I love it. Despite what it's about, for some reason I turn it into a feel-good song
Soul Asylum was a much better band up until Grave Dancer's Union.