"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.
(come on children, mind the gap)
Miracle people with marvelous hair
And a knack to do anything
Better than anyone
I got a home with electrical air
And I live in a world
Smaller than any one
I got a line a new frontier
I got a line on a new America
All of the people are vanishing here
I could be huge if I could just get from
The outside of everything
To the inside of you
From the outside of everything
To the inside of you
Purest Aluminum people
Are walking the streets of London
So hysterical
Nobody here gets a word that I say
And the problems I'm told,
Are more than medical
I got a friend from the new frontier
And Galen, she says,
"this is not america"
You need a girl with electrical hair
And the word that you wanted was al-you-mi-ni-um
From the outside of everything
To the inside of you
From the outside of everything
To the inside
I was in bed with
The girl at the end of the world
She says I'm goin' home
And you should come home too
I'm at the end of a new frontier
Here at the edge of the flat earth ending
I'm getting off to get lost in the air
At the end of the world where the light is bending
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
Miracle people with marvelous hair
And a knack to do anything
Better than anyone
I got a home with electrical air
And I live in a world
Smaller than any one
I got a line a new frontier
I got a line on a new America
All of the people are vanishing here
I could be huge if I could just get from
The outside of everything
To the inside of you
From the outside of everything
To the inside of you
Purest Aluminum people
Are walking the streets of London
So hysterical
Nobody here gets a word that I say
And the problems I'm told,
Are more than medical
I got a friend from the new frontier
And Galen, she says,
"this is not america"
You need a girl with electrical hair
And the word that you wanted was al-you-mi-ni-um
From the outside of everything
To the inside of you
From the outside of everything
To the inside
I was in bed with
The girl at the end of the world
She says I'm goin' home
And you should come home too
I'm at the end of a new frontier
Here at the edge of the flat earth ending
I'm getting off to get lost in the air
At the end of the world where the light is bending
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
From the outside of everything to the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
To the inside of you
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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Great version of a great song,
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dude- ghost train is a GREAT song- listen to the lyrics to understand. rookie...