"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.
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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,
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.
yeah definetly "woke up and climbed." it makes more sense and it's that way in the lyrics that came with the cd. also, "persian poems" not bones. and i think it's "opus 40 stone," not stoned. this is probably my favorite song on this cd. i love the way the notes descend down the scale then explode in crescendos in the chorus remeniscant of the beatle's "golden slumbers." the lyrics are some of jonathan donahue's best. the imagery is great. it describes a girl frustrated with life, restless and almost suicidal ("woke up and climbed from the suicide machine" and "scratching her wrists..."). I love the surreal turns just before the chorus, "she collapses down upon the ocean floor." opus 40 is a stone structure around the kingston new york area where the band is based ("catskill mountains"). the artist's name escapes me though. my favorite line in the song is "i'm alive she cried, but i don't know what it means." we know what physically being alive is, but why? it reminds me of the line in the neutral milk hotel song, in the aeroplane over the sea, "how strange it is to be anything at all." anyway i love this song and this record. it is at times dark and at times bright but always beautiful, eminating from some cavern deep in the catskill mountains and meandering through its trees into my ears.