"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.
6 in tha mornin' police kick in my door
Slipped on my lugz
'cause these thugs out the back yo
Jumped the back gate
Cranked the Chevy
Then I race
Popped in the tape
A motherfuckin' Three 6 Mafia tape
I'm crunked off the bump
Pumpin' through my backseat
Speedin' hit the weed
Though the end of the streets of Memphis, Tennesee
Got my stacks and some bags sittin' in the stash spot
Tatooes on my legs and a hot 40 glock
They got the hard on for the Infamous nigga
Call me Scarecrow
Used slangin' man, but I don't do that no more
I'm feelin' like I'm the most wanted
Every cop is an opponent
In the dash
On my ass, on the cherry buck flash
And I'm real
Man I got to get the fuck out of here
I had to ditch the Chevy
Callin' my mafia niggas to scooped me up
The blocks are crawlin' with cops
I can't go down, them slugs bust
I'm runnin' through yards and shit
Tryin' to dodge them tricks
I'm a movin' target
I spotted my nigga out there
On the real, gonna rde with out no fly shit
He didn't hesistate, we climbed up out my side of town
I told him bout' the drama in the ride and how it went down
I got a lay low cool (??) before I get back in it
Anti-peace and po-police
I beat them with glocks back to the street
I can't get caught, cause the new law say in it "ain't no deals"
I would decease these devil police, therefore I do twenty years
Every nigga and grill they drop a dime to papers
I gotta pull a quick capa before I catch the vapors
12 a-m the next day
Gotta bank the seas
Gotta preacher please (?) throw in the keys
Down to my nigga
Got the passport to get my overseas
Under the palm trees
But you know me a quarter key
But my pan was injured
The silent alarm was triggered
I heard a cop say come out with fuckin' hands up
Nigga now I got to show my Prophet (??)
My only way out was to take me some hostages
They keep askin' me over and over for demands
I told them back up
Or she got brains on her pants
The gun was to her head, I told them don't make me shoot
But little did I know they had a sniper on the roof
Slipped on my lugz
'cause these thugs out the back yo
Jumped the back gate
Cranked the Chevy
Then I race
Popped in the tape
A motherfuckin' Three 6 Mafia tape
I'm crunked off the bump
Pumpin' through my backseat
Speedin' hit the weed
Though the end of the streets of Memphis, Tennesee
Got my stacks and some bags sittin' in the stash spot
Tatooes on my legs and a hot 40 glock
They got the hard on for the Infamous nigga
Call me Scarecrow
Used slangin' man, but I don't do that no more
I'm feelin' like I'm the most wanted
Every cop is an opponent
In the dash
On my ass, on the cherry buck flash
And I'm real
Man I got to get the fuck out of here
I had to ditch the Chevy
Callin' my mafia niggas to scooped me up
The blocks are crawlin' with cops
I can't go down, them slugs bust
I'm runnin' through yards and shit
Tryin' to dodge them tricks
I'm a movin' target
I spotted my nigga out there
On the real, gonna rde with out no fly shit
He didn't hesistate, we climbed up out my side of town
I told him bout' the drama in the ride and how it went down
I got a lay low cool (??) before I get back in it
Anti-peace and po-police
I beat them with glocks back to the street
I can't get caught, cause the new law say in it "ain't no deals"
I would decease these devil police, therefore I do twenty years
Every nigga and grill they drop a dime to papers
I gotta pull a quick capa before I catch the vapors
12 a-m the next day
Gotta bank the seas
Gotta preacher please (?) throw in the keys
Down to my nigga
Got the passport to get my overseas
Under the palm trees
But you know me a quarter key
But my pan was injured
The silent alarm was triggered
I heard a cop say come out with fuckin' hands up
Nigga now I got to show my Prophet (??)
My only way out was to take me some hostages
They keep askin' me over and over for demands
I told them back up
Or she got brains on her pants
The gun was to her head, I told them don't make me shoot
But little did I know they had a sniper on the roof
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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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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,