"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.
Yesterday
you came to lift me up
As light as straw and brittle as a bird
Today I weigh less than a shadow on the wall
Just one more whisper of a voice unheard
Tomorrow
leave the windows open
As fear grows please hold me in your arms
Won't you help me if you can to shake this anger
I need your gentle hands to keep me calm
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd feel
This fire beneath my skin
I can't believe you love me
I never thought you'd come
I guess I misjudged love
Between a father and his son
Things we never said come together
The hidden truth no longer haunting me
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken
That kind of understanding sets me free
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd feel
This fire beneath my skin
I can't believe you love me
I never thought you'd come
I guess I misjudged love
Between a father and his son
you came to lift me up
As light as straw and brittle as a bird
Today I weigh less than a shadow on the wall
Just one more whisper of a voice unheard
Tomorrow
leave the windows open
As fear grows please hold me in your arms
Won't you help me if you can to shake this anger
I need your gentle hands to keep me calm
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd feel
This fire beneath my skin
I can't believe you love me
I never thought you'd come
I guess I misjudged love
Between a father and his son
Things we never said come together
The hidden truth no longer haunting me
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken
That kind of understanding sets me free
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd feel
This fire beneath my skin
I can't believe you love me
I never thought you'd come
I guess I misjudged love
Between a father and his son
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Fast Car
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“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
This song is so depressing and bittersweet at the same time. From what I understand Elton John wrote this to describe a young gay man dying of AIDS. The young man's father "disowned" his son when he learned of his homosexuality only to overcome his homophobia when learns that his son is dying and he has little time to spend with him.
Ultimately it gives both perspectives of the story in a sense. The son, like many of the world's youth, thought he was invincible. "AIDS won't happen to me"...just like many young adults/kids believe STDs, car accidents, tragedies can't happen to them...thus "I never thought I'd lose, I only thought I'd win". It also tells of a father who must overcome his disapproval of his son's lifestlye to ultimately love his son. It's like what Billy Corgan says in "This Time" ----"Only Love will win".
This song is tragic in that the death of this person is ultimately inevitable and is much too early in life. It's bittersweet in that it took an extreme taxing of the mind and body of a son and his father by this disease for a father to realize he has nothing to be ashamed of concerning his son, and that the only thing that matters is that he still loves the child he brought into the world.
BERNIE TAUPIN!!! wrote the lyrics. How hard is it to know that? Nobody here seems to own any albums by the artists they listen to, or don't know how to read linear notes.
The song is however about a young man re-uniting with his father who had disowned him due to homosexuality years before. They re-unite on his death-bed, when the son is dying of AIDS.
Brilliant song.
Thats absolutely right!
Elton said in an interview on "Inside the Actors Studio" that this song was about A father and a son who has aids and doesn't know how to tell his father that he has aids. All he wants to do is spend time with his father and it ends up bringing them closer
The song also is the soundtrack to the great movie "and the band played on". It's a movie about Aids and in the end the song on full length will played and you see pictures and short clips from more or less famous persons which dieing on Aids over the years.
@SlimAngel77 That was a very sad movie and the song is the perfect ending to it.