"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 met a non-dairy creamer
explicitly laid out like a fruitcake
with a wet spot
bigger than a great lake
took me to the new church
and baptized me with salt
she told me, "liquor"
i am a new man
hot freaks
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
i walked into the house of miraculous recovery
and stood before king everything
and he asked me to join him in the red wing
took me to pie land
said, "i'm a thigh man"
i will be eternally hateful
hot freaks
hot freaks
hot freaks
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
and this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
explicitly laid out like a fruitcake
with a wet spot
bigger than a great lake
took me to the new church
and baptized me with salt
she told me, "liquor"
i am a new man
hot freaks
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
i walked into the house of miraculous recovery
and stood before king everything
and he asked me to join him in the red wing
took me to pie land
said, "i'm a thigh man"
i will be eternally hateful
hot freaks
hot freaks
hot freaks
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
and this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
this one is on the house
this one is better than ever
Lyrics submitted by one hit wonder
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
In interviews Bob has said that his songwriting is affected by the fact that he taught grade school kids for so many years, so that his lyrics are often akin to "fairy tales for grown-ups". This one falls into that category, I think.
He seems to be in some kind of alternate world or dimension, and then encounters these "freak" personages. It's similar to the song "Big Boring Wedding"--the one where the chorus goes "pass the word the chicks are back," (a line lifted from a very outdated advertisement I think). In BBW he sings "I have entered a shiny new realm, a very different and very spoiled world...Colin, thank you for such delicious pie."
(hmmm, another "pie" reference... Bob is a fanatical record collector. I wonder--given the prior reference to oral sex--whether he mentally associates "pie" with pudenda. I'm thinking of the notorious album cover from the late '60s or early '70s in which a grandmotherly woman is proferring a pie with one slice already cut out -- and if you look closely at the place where the slice is missing, it looks very much like female genitalia. Sorry can't recall the name of the band or LP, but I think the cover was by far the most memorable thing they did, anyway)
I've wondered whether the lines in "Jar of Cardinals" might also refer to oral sex...specificially: "She was high and I was low/Sitting in a bungalow/Eating something wonderful/Never ever getting full" (hmm, this also has that nursery rhyme quality to it)
I don't think there's any deep meaning here. It's surreal and funny. "I will be eternally hateful" is classic. Bob's ease with wordplay ought to be more celebrated, but I'd guess GbV's music was just too weird to ever have gained a mass audience.