"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.
Silence disguised
I watch you
Show me the hurt
That haunts you
Would you despise the thrill
If all you hide were mine?
I can't hold on any longer
These feelings keep growing stronger
Echoes that deafen the mind
will bury my voice in their wake
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
I've seen the path
the one you take
shows the truth
for you to make
This turn of phrase
we might not see
is the thirst of desire
found so easily
Try to push me 'round
the world some more
And make me live in fear
I bare all that I am
made of now
Attractive I don't care
'Cause even when I danced with life
no one was there to share
Does this voice the wounds of your soul?
Does this voice the wounds of your soul?
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
Tried to live the life
you live and saw
It doesn't work for me
I bare all that I am
made of now
Attractive, I can't be
Inside the Dance of Life is one
I'll never hold to me
You can't heal the wounds of my soul.
You can't heal the wounds of my soul.
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
Caught in a Web
Refused by the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning a cage
Denied and misread
I watch you
Show me the hurt
That haunts you
Would you despise the thrill
If all you hide were mine?
I can't hold on any longer
These feelings keep growing stronger
Echoes that deafen the mind
will bury my voice in their wake
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
I've seen the path
the one you take
shows the truth
for you to make
This turn of phrase
we might not see
is the thirst of desire
found so easily
Try to push me 'round
the world some more
And make me live in fear
I bare all that I am
made of now
Attractive I don't care
'Cause even when I danced with life
no one was there to share
Does this voice the wounds of your soul?
Does this voice the wounds of your soul?
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
Tried to live the life
you live and saw
It doesn't work for me
I bare all that I am
made of now
Attractive, I can't be
Inside the Dance of Life is one
I'll never hold to me
You can't heal the wounds of my soul.
You can't heal the wounds of my soul.
Caught in a Web
Removed from the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning the lies
devised in my head
Caught in a Web
Refused by the world
Hanging on by a thread
Spinning a cage
Denied and misread
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Agreed with LaBrie there.