"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.
Driving through the long night
Trying to figure who's right and who's wrong
Now the kid has gone. I sit belted up tight,
She sucks on a match light, glowing bronze, steering on.
And I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let's go home. But she's got the wheel,
And I've got nothing except what I have on.
When you're driving with the brakes on,
When you're swimming with your boots on,
It's hard to say you love someone
And it's hard to say you don't.
Trying to keep the mood right, trying to steer the conversation from
The thing we've done.
She shuts up the ashtray and I say it's a long way back now hon
And she just yawns. And we might get lost someplace
So desolate that no one where we're from would ever come
But she's got the wheel and I've got to deal from now on.
But unless the moon falls tonight, unless continents collide,
Nothing's gonna make me break from her side.
Trying to figure who's right and who's wrong
Now the kid has gone. I sit belted up tight,
She sucks on a match light, glowing bronze, steering on.
And I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let's go home. But she's got the wheel,
And I've got nothing except what I have on.
When you're driving with the brakes on,
When you're swimming with your boots on,
It's hard to say you love someone
And it's hard to say you don't.
Trying to keep the mood right, trying to steer the conversation from
The thing we've done.
She shuts up the ashtray and I say it's a long way back now hon
And she just yawns. And we might get lost someplace
So desolate that no one where we're from would ever come
But she's got the wheel and I've got to deal from now on.
But unless the moon falls tonight, unless continents collide,
Nothing's gonna make me break from her side.
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Fast Car
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Page
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Dangerman is referring to "Trying to figure who's right and who's wrong, Now the kid has gone". Not sure if its about abortion, the kid growing up and leaving home or putting the kid up for adoption.