"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.
I once had a girl
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around
And I noticed there wasn't a chair
I sat on a rug biding my time
Drinking her wine
We talked until two and then she said
"It's time for bed"
She told me she worked
In the morning and started to laugh
I told her I didn't
And crawled off to sleep in the bath
And when I awoke I was alone
This bird had flown
So I lit a fire
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around
And I noticed there wasn't a chair
I sat on a rug biding my time
Drinking her wine
We talked until two and then she said
"It's time for bed"
She told me she worked
In the morning and started to laugh
I told her I didn't
And crawled off to sleep in the bath
And when I awoke I was alone
This bird had flown
So I lit a fire
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?
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Fast Car
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Mountain Song
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"'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."
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Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
This song is extremely frustrated.
What I mean by this is that is it essentially about being led on--yes, perhaps John intended it to take on a more sexual aspect, but either way it is true. The first sentence implies how they had interest in each other, but his was definitely more. She revealed a lot to him, including Norwegian wood. Norwegian wood is cheap wood, so right from the get-go it is revealed that whatever she felt for him was weaker than he presumed.
She had some interest in getting to know him, but it was not as much as he thought. However, he waited because she did offer him niceties. It's almost funny how relevant John was to the modern world and how people often stay up late talking and then simply go to bed like it was not a big deal.
The girl had other obligations the next day and thought it was all good fun that they had been talking. But the speaker was still willing to wait up for her and sacrifice his own priorities. He does not make a move on her (sexual or otherwise) because she has just wrecked their late-night conversation by saying how she has "work" the next day.
When he woke up the next morning, she had moved on. The bird had flown and the speaker realizes he's too late (I say speaker out of respect but I have a feeling John was writing about himself). He's angry and lights a fire symbolically to the weak wood.
It astounds me how much pain and literary technique John uses in every song he writes. I feel like he understands me and my own similar experiences and it means the world to me. I wish we could have known each other because I feel like I could have understood him as well.