"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.
I took a taxi form LA to Venus
In 1985 I was electromagnetically sucked
Back into a party going on that night
It was the gory of the 80s with karma drawn up in lines
And two Bugle Boy models saying "baby it's a freebie
You sure look deprived." I had the
Story of O in my bucket seat
Of my want to be mustang
Auditioning for reptiles in their
Raquel Welsh campaign
In the glories of the 80's you said
"I'm not afraid to die" I said
I don't find that remotely funny, even
On this space cake high
And then when it all seemed clear
Just then you go and disappear
Silicone party babies to the left
And Joan of Arcs to the right
No one feeling insecure
We were all gorge and famous in our last lives
In the glories of the 80's you said
"the end is nothing to fear" I said
Blow the end
Now baby who do I gotta shag to get outta here
And then when it all seemed clear
Just then you go and disappear
Sure you're out there orbiting around
Wish I had you back now
I met a drag king called venus
She had a velvet hologram she said
"My husband ran off with my shaman but they love me as I am"
In the glories of the 80's
I may not have to die
I'll clone myself like that blonde chick
That sings Bette Davis eyes and then
When it all seemed to clear
Just then
You go and disappear
In 1985 I was electromagnetically sucked
Back into a party going on that night
It was the gory of the 80s with karma drawn up in lines
And two Bugle Boy models saying "baby it's a freebie
You sure look deprived." I had the
Story of O in my bucket seat
Of my want to be mustang
Auditioning for reptiles in their
Raquel Welsh campaign
In the glories of the 80's you said
"I'm not afraid to die" I said
I don't find that remotely funny, even
On this space cake high
And then when it all seemed clear
Just then you go and disappear
Silicone party babies to the left
And Joan of Arcs to the right
No one feeling insecure
We were all gorge and famous in our last lives
In the glories of the 80's you said
"the end is nothing to fear" I said
Blow the end
Now baby who do I gotta shag to get outta here
And then when it all seemed clear
Just then you go and disappear
Sure you're out there orbiting around
Wish I had you back now
I met a drag king called venus
She had a velvet hologram she said
"My husband ran off with my shaman but they love me as I am"
In the glories of the 80's
I may not have to die
I'll clone myself like that blonde chick
That sings Bette Davis eyes and then
When it all seemed to clear
Just then
You go and disappear
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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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
I really like this song. Whenever I listen to it, I get this picture in my head of an 80's club....people dancing and doing coke, and i picture tori with her big hair and leather form her y kant tori read days :)
"Mainly the honesty of the decadence of that decade. There's the line /and then, just when it all seemed clear you go and disappear/. I knew a lot of great people in the eighties but at the time I didn't always understand them. Now, there's such a void in the art world, people with vision have physically passed on. It's also a stab at political correctness - you can't say this, you can't say that; now everybody has to be called a Spanish American, an African American and I mean, [getting worked up] Oh bloody, fucking hell!!! I understand the abuses that have happened and I absolutely think recompense should be paid, but you don't do it just on a surface level. Everybody thinks that the debt has been paid to the 'quote unquote' Indians who had their land taken away from them because we call them Native Americans. It's hard when everything is so eggshell, eggshell, eggshell. I do miss the eighties. It was great, knowing that friends were on one hand dialing a charity and on the other hand doing a line of blow -- but not lying about it, being honest. None of us are this light and dark fantasy. What's dark to you may be light to me and vice versa."
It to me is a perfect representation of the decadence and idealism of youth. Being 20 years old, I relate to it all too well. As a youths, I think we all feel enlightened and informed and we just don't realize that while we are drinking our beers and smoking our joints that we can loose it as quickly as we got it.