"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.
Saw a silhouette across a fluorescent
Floating overhead, undoing his helmet
Through the murky beams and blue-green sea life
I saw him spinnin' towards the moonlight
I pull him in, he wasn't breathin'
His eyes were wide and I saw two of me there
There's an ugly buzz that hovers just above the quiet
Found a way to make it silent
I'm comin' up for air [Repeat: x2]
Air [Repeat: x2]
They hold my hand and ask me to pull through
A voice I know says "Dear, he probably can't hear you"
Comin' up for air [Repeat: x3]
Floating overhead, undoing his helmet
Through the murky beams and blue-green sea life
I saw him spinnin' towards the moonlight
I pull him in, he wasn't breathin'
His eyes were wide and I saw two of me there
There's an ugly buzz that hovers just above the quiet
Found a way to make it silent
I'm comin' up for air [Repeat: x2]
Air [Repeat: x2]
They hold my hand and ask me to pull through
A voice I know says "Dear, he probably can't hear you"
Comin' up for air [Repeat: x3]
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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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
This song seems to be about him pulling someone who's drowned out of the water at first-- But the last two stanzas seem as if he's referring to himself. "I'm coming up for air They hold my hand And ask me to pull through"
Perhaps.
I think he's referring to himself the whole time. It was a near death experience for him. He pulled himself out and also watched over the whole thing. "I saw two of me there."
The "two of me there" is the reflection in the goggles of the rescuer. "dear" is someone female the rescuer is talking to. I pictured the "ugly buzz" as a helicopter. Some of Bens best lyrics here:
"A voice I know says, 'dear, he probly cant hear you'"
He's clearly having an out of body experience - he's describing his view of himself as a man drowning and then as a man being rescued. The song is playing on the idea of how people describe out of body experiences in general (which they describe as "floating" outside of one's body) so as his body floats to the surface (coming up for air) his spirit or essence floats somewhere above him. Neat.
i realize the song clearly talks in the beginning about a drowned or near drowned someone or other, but when i listened to it, the first thought in my head was of space. in one of the Space Odyssey books they pull this dude in from space at the beginning, and it reminds me of that. towards the end the signer changes perspectives and is looking from the guy coming back to life. interesting. AIM: canteendave canteendave@hotmail.com
I think that maybe everyone should look at the line: "I aw two of me there." :-)
*saw, oops typos. anyway, since that is between the stanzas where everyone believes he is talking about two different people, the former being another, and the latter being himself, it would seem that it tells you that he is talking about himself. But once you come to that realization, reading the lyrics in their entirety, again, might lead you to believe that he was himself all along, in the water... I dunno.
this is a really pretty song. i mean the tune, being drowned isn't so pretty.
Shijiikari.. I was thinking.. that line about seeing the two of him... couldnt that be actually be him seeing two of himself in the other man's eyes?.. seeing one of himself in each of the guy's eyes. Make sense?
I think this song is written from the eyes of two different people. The first line is himself. He has dronwed and he is looking up and he sees an image of possibly a firefighter ("Floating overhead, undoing his helmet"), the image of the firefighter is sillhouetted and spinning due to the ripples of the water (ever look up from under water?). The next stanza is from the rescuers point of view. When he says "i saw two of me there", it is simply his (the rescuer) reflection in each eye of the man he is saving. I'm not exactly sure what is ment by the lines "There's an ugly buzz that hovers just above the quiet. I found a way to make it silent", but it would be my best guess that he is refering to the tone of a heart monitor when a person flat lines, and when he makes it silent, he has brought the person back. The last two stanzas are from the view point of the man who drowned, he is coming back to life "coming up for air".
Okay......where to start? I've listened to this song a billion times. I'm way to crazy about Ben Folds. I believe that there are two people who are talking in this song. The first stanza is spoken by the person who is drowning. The way that it sounds to me is that he and someone that he knew well were scuba diving. Now I know I sound like I'm just thinking about this way too much, but I scuba dive and I know for a fact that when you go out at night you take flurorescent lights with you and usually the boat shines some down too. This person that he's seeing "undoing his helmet" could be trying to get the drowning person his air tube. Also he talks of the sea life. Had he just fallen in or something like that he likely wouldn't see anything. The next verse is the other person he was diving with. He talks about pulling him out of the water and seeing himself reflected in his eyes. The buzzing that is mention could possibly the air still leaking out because that's what it does when you disconnect it to get someone else air. Also the heartmachine as mentioned in other comments wouldn't buzz it would beep (just my opinion). The last phrase is just the guy who drowned kinda coming to. He's obviously with people he knows. "A voice I know...." He knows the voice and if he knew the voice he would also know the "Dear". That's just my opinion of the song. I was very pleasantly surprised with this little ditty when I bought the Godzilla soundtrack. :) God I sound really cool!