"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.
It's not time to make a change
Just relax, take it easy
You're still young, that's your fault
There's so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy
I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy
To be calm when you've found something going on
But take your time, think a lot
Why, think of everything you've got
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not
How can I try to explain? 'Cause when I do he turns away again
It's always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know, I have to go
It's not time to make a change (away, away, away)
Just sit down, take it slowly
You're still young, that's your fault (I know)
There's so much you have to go through (I have to make this decision)
Find a girl, settle down (alone)
If you want you can marry
Look at me (no)
I am old, but I'm happy
All the times that I cried (stay, stay, stay)
Keeping all the things I knew inside
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it (why must you go)
(And make this decision?)
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know not me (alone)
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go
Just relax, take it easy
You're still young, that's your fault
There's so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy
I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy
To be calm when you've found something going on
But take your time, think a lot
Why, think of everything you've got
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not
How can I try to explain? 'Cause when I do he turns away again
It's always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know, I have to go
It's not time to make a change (away, away, away)
Just sit down, take it slowly
You're still young, that's your fault (I know)
There's so much you have to go through (I have to make this decision)
Find a girl, settle down (alone)
If you want you can marry
Look at me (no)
I am old, but I'm happy
All the times that I cried (stay, stay, stay)
Keeping all the things I knew inside
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it (why must you go)
(And make this decision?)
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know not me (alone)
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go
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More Featured Meanings
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"
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
This is NOT a CONVERSATION between a father and son! I think most people are missing something very basic. Look at the personal pronouns. In the first sentence (you) is understood and the next sentences we see "You're, your, and you". The Father is talking to the son (or at him). Now look at the son's section of the song. You will see "he/him" written or inferred when speaking about the father. He is not speaking TO his father. He is talking to a third party or, most likely, to himself. That is NOT a conversation. A conversation goes BOTH ways. The father is speaking unilaterally to the son - this is the way it's going to be. The son is NOT speaking back. Like many children do, they storm out of the room or clam up (even when they are adults) and the son’s part of the song is what is going through his angry head afterwards. “He doesn’t understand me, he won’t even listen to me, that’s it — I’m out of here!”
I think Cat Stevens was a genius in lyrics and meaning (many of which are very subtle) and this song is one of many. This is a great example of what happens to Fathers and Sons at an age where the son might feel like a man but the father is still treating him like a boy. This was written around Vietnam timeframe, the album came out in 1970. Many sons were saying, "Dad I'm a man and I want to join the service and go away to Vietnam" or "Dad this war is bs, I'm going away to live in Canada, or to protest the war, or to live in a commune"... We are not privy to what started the conversation. Think back to when you were this age and tried to have a conversation with a parent. Many parents don’t listen. Before you can finish the sentence, “Dad/Mom I’ve been thinking about taking my college money and cutting an album, and…“ And you don’t get to finish the sentence. Perhaps that is where this song starts. Whatever the son said, the father interrupts with “it’s not time to make a change, just sit down and take it easy”… (read -> you’re not going anywhere) This song makes it hard to judge the father, because he has such a soft voice, but his first sentence is still comes across as an order (Parent to small Child) and not an opinion (as if between adults). It is pleasantly worded, but in essence the father is saying, “this is the way it is going to be”. In the second sentence (about youth) the father insults him. What he is really saying is “Let me tell you what’s wrong with you”. He eventually says “but your dreams may not” giving us a clue that the son wants to chase his dreams and the father thinks his dream may be a fad (if the kid had the benefit of the father’s experience, the child would realize that he is wrong). Perhaps the father went through the same thing with his father and his dreams were crushed. Is the father right? If the kid was 18 and wanted to go to Nam instead of college some may agree with the father. If the kid was 18 and named Steven Demetre Georgiou (Cat), and wanted to forego college to pursue a music career, I’d have to agree with the kid.
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@Lyrics2Deep 100% correct. In my opinion.
What you describe is a typical conversation between father and son.
Funny how different life experiences cause different interpretations. <br /> I always took the first verse to mean a talk between father and son about life/love and the turn between that youthful idealisic dream of the aformentioned and how it could be soured when 'she' is found to be 'playing up'. and how it's always better to walk away than to fire up and fight, even if your dreams are stripped away, especially when there is a son/children involved. (in my family the latter is basically what happened, after a number of fights, which in a different time (early 90s) turned violent, my father decided to walk away, leaving me to be raised with my mother on the theory of 2 happy households are better than one horrible one).<br /> I always thought this but never understood the ' take your time, think alot, think of everything you've got, for you may still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not." until i had kiddo's of my own and thought about the conversation could go from the other side. Especially when my wife and I hit some rougher patches after kids and found the struggle between wanting to be together for the kids or seeking individual happyness by beeing apart, at taking time to seek the beauty in what we had before making a rash decision and missing out on watching my son grow up.
@Lyrics2Deep I totally agree with you. The song is amazing I love it .💜💜