"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.
Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Combien, combien, combien de temps?
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Combien, combien, combien de temps?
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Combien, combien, combien de temps?
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Combien, combien, combien de temps?
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Lyrics submitted by xpankfrisst
Talk About the Passion Lyrics as written by Peter Buck Bill Berry
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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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"
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"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.
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Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Very intriguing. Somehow I'd never thought about the lyrics of this song referring to the capital-P "Passion". The interpretation seems well supported, particularly if Stipe's attitude is skeptical or critical; then "empty prayer, empty mouths..." would make a lot more sense. In this context, "Not everyone can carry the weight of the world" suggests we can't all be like Christ.
OTOH Stipe has said the song is about hunger. There's a video for the song which depicts homeless people. "Combien du temps" literally means "How much time," but in this context it would be a rhetorical question: "How much longer can you look upon this suffering and not want to do something about it?" Put it another way, is the plight of the poor something we merely "talk about," or is it not a moral imperative to DO something about it?
Considering Stipe's evident penchant for ambiguity and layers of meaning, it wouldn't surprise me if both of these interpretations were intended. It seems many people manage to read the Gospels without paying much attention to Christ's concern for the suffering of the poor, but I've always found that mind-boggling as He talks so much about it.
Or, at least, something akin to these interpretations. Who knows what he was thinking. It's not unusual for him to be deliberately obscure -- probably in part a habit he developed so he could write about his personal emotional struggles without giving away his secrets. Think of the repetition of the phrase "don't get caught" on two of Chronic Town's songs. I don't think this was paranoia so much as a desire to keep his private life private.
I hadn't known Stipe was raised Catholic. Don't see much here which evokes the Eucharist except "empty mouths" which could suggest someone in the queue at Mass waiting to receive the Host. But it would at least be a more economical use of language; otherwise "empty prayer" and "empty mouths" are reiterating the same concept (i.e. prayer is futile).
@foreverdrone yeah, this isn’t the type of direct attack in song I normally associate with R.E.M., I always think of that as more a U2 attribute (arguably the two biggest-best rock bands of the MTV-into-Alternative-Era, pre-Grunge especially; an important time) out of their contemporary bands. But wow, this seems nothing less than a shot across the bow of the then-newly rising Religious Right from a kid who grew up not far from where the platitudes-loving Jesus freaks are most thick (in both number and skull), not to mention the KKK has some of its most popular & “symbolic” modern strongholds & “shrines” within the state in which Stipe grew up, the “modern”-shiddkigger state, Georgia West, and there are always connections to be made between the two; D.W. Griffith made the same connections, and he and Michael Stipe, I’m guessing, aren’t exactly “political bedfellows” (not that I’m saying Stipe said there was a connection between people who simply cannot forget they lost a war - lost it BADLY, there was nothing classy or aristocratic or Whitely-Supreme about the way Sherman burned the South to the ground and then started over - and the south had it coming then, and maybe even now) fought over owning human beings; I am The one saying that). This is really exciting, and this is EARLY in R.E.M.’s career, supposedly before they became really politically/personally outspoken about certain Democratic causes, especially the truly democratic. This is way more “direct” than even the 10-years-later ‘Drive’/Automatic For The People, which I can recall as if was yesterday. <br /> <br /> I’m 15y late replying to your comment, but the intervening years have had no shortage, in The Age Of Angry Cowards With Assault Weapons, aka, the Age Of Mass Shootings, no shortage of creepy politicians offering empty “thoughts & prayers”, such as the human slimy-slug Ted Cruz (I’m reluctant to associate slugs with him, since slugs serve a very useful purpose, one that even benefits humanity; I actually LIKE slugs, and I like them even more in relation to Cruz and the people he supposedly reps, as well as the people he truly reps, such as the oily, in more ways than one, Jerry Jones) utterly empty “thoughts & prayers” from the same pols carrying water for the NRA. Because “Jeezuss & Duh Ahrmah-laght Ragh-full - A nat’rull combuneeshun”. It’s so stupid it’s gotta be Murricn. And Suthern. Not that cruelty is relegated to the Murricn south, it’s not, but the ignorance and stupidity is strongest there. It’s how the Ted cruxes & Greg abbots - two wastes of space - get elected there. Because The people Are morons with no sense of civic or national pride. Or Shame for that matter. Jes’ “Don’ mess wit’ Duh Texiss”. Every time i hear a typically-gutless Texan proclaim what a badass he is just by virtue of being born there and having a gun, I begin a laughing fit and my eyes roll all the way back in my head and I have to lay down for an hour in a dark room to get them facing front again. <br /> <br /> <br /> So yeah, EMPTY definitely covers it, and this song was written & released 40 years ago. What’s going on now with the (utterly empty, beyond any shadow of doubt) religious right is nothing new.