"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.
Wait a minute, baby
Stay with me awhile
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me 'bout the fire
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home
And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match, he was singing
And undoing, and undoing the laces
Undoing the laces
Said Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
But when you build your house
Then call me home
Hold on
The night is coming and the starling flew for days
I'll stay home at night, all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there, yeah
Ask me and I'm there, I care
In the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
They say it doesn't matter anymore
If you build your house
Then please call me home
Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, and don't you ever stop
Now it's gone
No it doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
I'll come by
Sara
Sara
Stay with me awhile
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me 'bout the fire
Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home
And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match, he was singing
And undoing, and undoing the laces
Undoing the laces
Said Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
But when you build your house
Then call me home
Hold on
The night is coming and the starling flew for days
I'll stay home at night, all the time
I'd go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere
Ask me and I'm there, yeah
Ask me and I'm there, I care
In the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
They say it doesn't matter anymore
If you build your house
Then please call me home
Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change, and don't you ever stop
Now it's gone
No it doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
I'll come by
Sara
Sara
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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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Sara [is my most personal song] It's about myself, and what all of us in Fleetwood Mac were going through at the time. The true version of that song is 16 minutes long. It's a saga with many verses people haven't heard. ~Stevie Nicks, Us magazine, July 1990
[On who Sara is] Probably my alter ego, my other self. ~Stevie Nicks, Montreal Interview
I wrote Sara on the piano, by myself. The original Sara was 16 minutes long. Like about nine more verses than what you hear on the record. It got edited down to 14 minutes, down to 11 minutes, down to 9 minutes, down to 7 minutes, down to 4 minutes and 40 seconds. I was to the point where I went, 'Is the word Sara even going to be left in the song?'
I knew that Sara would be very popular because I loved writing that song. I've had more fun writing that...I remember the night I wrote it. 'I sat up with a very good friend of mine whose name is Sara, who was married to Mick Fleetwood. She likes to think it's completely about her, but it's really not completely about her. It's about me, about her, about Mick, about Fleetwood Mac. Its about all of us at that point. There's little bits about each one of us in that song and when it had all the other verses it really covered a vast bunch of people. Sara was the kind of song you could fall in love with, because I fell in love with it... ~Stevie Nicks, Tommy Vance show, May 1994
[On whether the line in the song Sara, 'When you build your house, I'll come by' is about Don Henley, whom she was dating at the time?] (laughs) That is true. He did [build the house]. And I was in it before he finished it. ~Stevie Nicks, Us magazine, July 1990
If I ever have a little girl I will name her Sara. It's a very special name to me. I love singing it on stage. It's the absolute delight of my night. There's so much in Sara. And it is ~ the poet in my heart, for sure. ~Stevie Nicks, Jim Ladd Innerview, 1979
There were some great similarities [in the lyrics], and I never said she didn't write the words she wrote. Just don't tell me I didn't write the words I wrote. Most people think that the other party will settle out of court, but she picked the wrong songwriter. To call me a thief about my first love, my songs, that's going too far. [After a few months, the woman's lawyers finally gave up, stating] 'We believe you.' ~Stevie Nicks, on her lawsuit over the song Sara, Rolling Stone, 1981