"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.
It takes a backwash man to sing a backwash song
Like a frying pan when the fire's gone
Driving my pig while the bear's taking pictures in the grass
In my radio smashed
And I like pianos in the evening sun
Dragging my heals 'til my day is done
Saturday night in the Captain's clothes
Tin horns blowing with my jury 'phros
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
I can't believe my way back when
My Cadillac pants going much to fast
Karaoke weekend at the suicide shack
Community service and I'm still the mack
Shocked my finger spicing my hand
I been spreading disease all across the land
Beautiful air-conditioned sitting in the kitchen
Wishing I was living like a hit man
Face down in the guarantees
Jaundiced marshal's getting busy with ease
Because I get down I get down
I get down all the way
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
Sawdust songs of the plaid bartenders
Western Unions of the country westerns
Silver foxes looking for romance
In the chain smoke Kansas flash dance ass pants
And you got the hot wax residues
You never lose in your razor blade shoes
Stealing pesos out of my brain
Hazard signs down the Alamo lanes
Radar systems using the souls
You never get caught with the wax so rotten
All my days I got the grizzly worms
Hijacked flavors that I'm flipping like birds
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
Who are you
I'm the enchanting wizard of rhythm
Why did you come here?
I came here to tell you about the rhythms of the universe
Like a frying pan when the fire's gone
Driving my pig while the bear's taking pictures in the grass
In my radio smashed
And I like pianos in the evening sun
Dragging my heals 'til my day is done
Saturday night in the Captain's clothes
Tin horns blowing with my jury 'phros
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
I can't believe my way back when
My Cadillac pants going much to fast
Karaoke weekend at the suicide shack
Community service and I'm still the mack
Shocked my finger spicing my hand
I been spreading disease all across the land
Beautiful air-conditioned sitting in the kitchen
Wishing I was living like a hit man
Face down in the guarantees
Jaundiced marshal's getting busy with ease
Because I get down I get down
I get down all the way
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
Sawdust songs of the plaid bartenders
Western Unions of the country westerns
Silver foxes looking for romance
In the chain smoke Kansas flash dance ass pants
And you got the hot wax residues
You never lose in your razor blade shoes
Stealing pesos out of my brain
Hazard signs down the Alamo lanes
Radar systems using the souls
You never get caught with the wax so rotten
All my days I got the grizzly worms
Hijacked flavors that I'm flipping like birds
Yo soy un disco cabrado
Yo tengo chicle en cerabo
Who are you
I'm the enchanting wizard of rhythm
Why did you come here?
I came here to tell you about the rhythms of the universe
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Fast Car
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The ends weird with the one girl "who are you?"... "Why did you come here?" its just weird. But i like the song hehe. All of his songs are just so perfectly random.