"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.
Life can only get better
All you need to do is fall in love
Everyone else has fun but you
Buy that fun you'll fit in too
Dance your problems away
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Cheap escape to that mind-control beat
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Mellow out-Life's too hard
You don't even want to think
See the macho cock-rock metal heroes
Vomit fire out of their big mouths
Shake your fists obediently
Make Leni Riefenstahl real proud
See the Aryan bozo with the red guitar
Parachute on the White House lawn
Gonna bomb the commies with his air guitar
So dumb he can't drive 55
Like Bing Crosby before them
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Too idiotic to be real
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
You want it loud?
We'll make sure it goes nowhere
So you won't get ideas
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Music is banned in Khomeini's Iran
On the grounds that it stimulates the brain
We've done him one better in the land of coke & honey
Using music to put people's brains to sleep
Ever wonder why commercial radio's so bad?
It's 'cause someone upstairs wants it that way
If the Doors or John Lennon were getting started now
The industry wouldn't sign 'em in a million years
So what do we get
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Christian censorship and taxed blank tapes
Shoppers strung out on our false hopes
Will flock to obey
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
All you need to do is fall in love
Everyone else has fun but you
Buy that fun you'll fit in too
Dance your problems away
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Cheap escape to that mind-control beat
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Mellow out-Life's too hard
You don't even want to think
See the macho cock-rock metal heroes
Vomit fire out of their big mouths
Shake your fists obediently
Make Leni Riefenstahl real proud
See the Aryan bozo with the red guitar
Parachute on the White House lawn
Gonna bomb the commies with his air guitar
So dumb he can't drive 55
Like Bing Crosby before them
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Too idiotic to be real
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
You want it loud?
We'll make sure it goes nowhere
So you won't get ideas
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Music is banned in Khomeini's Iran
On the grounds that it stimulates the brain
We've done him one better in the land of coke & honey
Using music to put people's brains to sleep
Ever wonder why commercial radio's so bad?
It's 'cause someone upstairs wants it that way
If the Doors or John Lennon were getting started now
The industry wouldn't sign 'em in a million years
So what do we get
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Christian censorship and taxed blank tapes
Shoppers strung out on our false hopes
Will flock to obey
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
Triumph of the swill
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