"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.
Who’s the real underclass?
you really believe that you’re better off than me?
who’s the one working a fifty hour week?
the new working class shuffles papers at desks
computer screens blind you to your living death
another day working another day lost
a six A.m. sunset at a five day week cost
the blood on your fingertips, mind frayed like rope
unhealthy reminder of purpose revoked
you’ll get your share, you’ll go nowhere
and you’ve no idea
and I don’t care
and no one cares
‘cause no one’s there
like you care
complacency for show
last appeal gone you know
and no one ever gets off for good behavior
when they’re living on death row
and it’s all the same
the system’s blackwash life’s cruel game
and it’s all the same
the system’s blackwash life’s cruel game
and there’s no stand
you sicken me
selling off
your sanity
two dollar happiness
five for the rest of me
then we fall like raindrops
you’re pulling me down
to a place
I never asked to go (but)
it’s such a lonely trip
to be making all alone
so I ask again:
you really believe that you’re better off than me?
who’s the one working a fifty hour week?
the highway to hell’s a road paved with gold
and the price of your selfishness is making you
is making you
is making you
is making you
old
you really believe that you’re better off than me?
who’s the one working a fifty hour week?
the new working class shuffles papers at desks
computer screens blind you to your living death
another day working another day lost
a six A.m. sunset at a five day week cost
the blood on your fingertips, mind frayed like rope
unhealthy reminder of purpose revoked
you’ll get your share, you’ll go nowhere
and you’ve no idea
and I don’t care
and no one cares
‘cause no one’s there
like you care
complacency for show
last appeal gone you know
and no one ever gets off for good behavior
when they’re living on death row
and it’s all the same
the system’s blackwash life’s cruel game
and it’s all the same
the system’s blackwash life’s cruel game
and there’s no stand
you sicken me
selling off
your sanity
two dollar happiness
five for the rest of me
then we fall like raindrops
you’re pulling me down
to a place
I never asked to go (but)
it’s such a lonely trip
to be making all alone
so I ask again:
you really believe that you’re better off than me?
who’s the one working a fifty hour week?
the highway to hell’s a road paved with gold
and the price of your selfishness is making you
is making you
is making you
is making you
old
Lyrics submitted by PLANES
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