"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.
Clusters of people talking secretly to eachother
In a bar you cannot talk openly to anyone you don't already know
4-year olds
They have got the right idea
They jump the line and hit it on the nose
When we sit and we get quiet
Then we look and see who's home across the way
There are 80 windows we can see
It's Christmas-time and they all have the same tree
You tell me the patterns you already see
I wonder is they see us in our bed
You said you like the one with the father who always eats with his son
I like the rows of lights because they keep me calm
I feel far away from you
So what else is new?
The moon is closer to the sun than I am to anyone
In a bar you cannot talk openly to anyone you don't already know
4-year olds
They have got the right idea
They jump the line and hit it on the nose
When we sit and we get quiet
Then we look and see who's home across the way
There are 80 windows we can see
It's Christmas-time and they all have the same tree
You tell me the patterns you already see
I wonder is they see us in our bed
You said you like the one with the father who always eats with his son
I like the rows of lights because they keep me calm
I feel far away from you
So what else is new?
The moon is closer to the sun than I am to anyone
Lyrics submitted by meredithsucks
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Beautiful and raw.
The moon is closer to the sun than I am to anyone i love that line, and the way he sings it breaks my heart.
i love this song. i first heard it on a mix tape someone gave me, which probably makes all the difference. "its christmas time, and they all have the same tree." how many times have i felt that?
I think the song is about feeling lonely in a big, dark and very cold city. He has got a realionship "I wonder is they see us in our bed " but even that does nothing to the fact that this city is bringing him down and is making him feel lonely. Or at least that is what I think of it.
his relationship is obviously empty, and he has basically become disconnected from the world
i love this song... i can relate so much.
I like how at the beginning he clearly establishes the distances between people (DCFC Transatlantism) and how he transtions to how if he maybe had a mindset of a kid then all the lines would be redrawn and nothing would be weird because a kids midset is so unrestricted and free. It seems that he is with someone, his girlfriend perhaps, and they are at a bar looking out the window in boredom...they are appreciating thing outside the window that bring them some joy but nothing that is bringing them closer as a couple. The rest of the song is pretty straight foreward... he is feeling lonely and it's christmas time, it's not suppose to be this way. I'm thinking when he wrote this song he was really really lonley because christmas time brings people together and what he wanted so bad was something really and whole, but all he was, was closer to the moon than to anyone.
<b>bottom line:</b> totally <i>awesome</i> song
Him and his girlfriend live in an appartment that overlooks another block. They can see 80 different windows out of their window. That is why when he is bored, he looks across the way to see who is in. 'I wonder if they see us in our bed' is him thinking out loud that he wonders whether they look back through their windows and think the same things about him and his girlfriend. Great song!
i agree with upallnight and the theme of boredom, rather than that of loneliness. the 'the moon is closer to the sun' comment is definitely very obvious, but overall i think it's about boredom.
rather than loneliness alone, i think the moon comment is.. well.. why would he be so bored if he were close to people? i think that's all that means, rather than a personal statement of the status of a relationship [or lack thereof] like so many other songs have on 'the proximity effect.'
I think he's bored because the society's conventions don't allow him to let loose and have fun. The two situations he's in during the song (a bar & his own bed) are arguably situations that he should feel pretty relaxed. Instead he's longing for a child's carefree and consequence-free relationship with everything around him. Society's conventions make him feel distant.