"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.
Ooh, hey hey, oh
What we're living in
Let me tell ya
And it's a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big that should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us?
And I'm giving all my love to this world
Only to be told
I can't see, I can't breathe
No more will we be
And nothing's gonna change the way we live
'Cause we can always take but never give
And now that things are changing for the worse, see
Whoa, it's a crazy world we're living in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give these
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground
And I'm thinking what a mess we're in
Hard to know where to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties of earth that man has made
And now every mother can choose the color
Of her child
That's not nature's way
Well that's what they said yesterday
There's nothing left to do but pray
I think it's time to find a new religion
Whoa, it's so insane
To synthesize another strain
There's something in these futures that we have to be told
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground, whoa
Now there is no sound
If we all live underground
And now it's virtual insanity
Forget your virtual reality
Oh, there's nothing so bad as a meddlin' man
Oh yeah
I know, yeah
(Ooh)
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground, oh
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) Now this life that we're living
It's all going wrong, it's out of the window
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) You know that there is nothing worse than
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) A rambling man, there is nothing worse than
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) A foolish mind, yeah
Virtual insanity is what we're living in
Yeah, well it's alright
What we're living in
Let me tell ya
And it's a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big that should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us?
And I'm giving all my love to this world
Only to be told
I can't see, I can't breathe
No more will we be
And nothing's gonna change the way we live
'Cause we can always take but never give
And now that things are changing for the worse, see
Whoa, it's a crazy world we're living in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give these
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground
And I'm thinking what a mess we're in
Hard to know where to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties of earth that man has made
And now every mother can choose the color
Of her child
That's not nature's way
Well that's what they said yesterday
There's nothing left to do but pray
I think it's time to find a new religion
Whoa, it's so insane
To synthesize another strain
There's something in these futures that we have to be told
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground, whoa
Now there is no sound
If we all live underground
And now it's virtual insanity
Forget your virtual reality
Oh, there's nothing so bad as a meddlin' man
Oh yeah
I know, yeah
(Ooh)
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground, oh
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) Now this life that we're living
It's all going wrong, it's out of the window
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) You know that there is nothing worse than
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) A rambling man, there is nothing worse than
(Livin' in, virtual insanity) A foolish mind, yeah
Virtual insanity is what we're living in
Yeah, well it's alright
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Fast Car
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Punchline
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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.
A thought. We all now -live- in the 'digital underground' i.e., what 'the Internet' was known to be in the mid-90s, and largely populated by those who'd been on the BBS before, versed on IRC, and so on.
And there is no sound. Because nobody picks up the phone anymore. We all text. We all type.
Scary.