"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.
(Yes, and disciplinary remains mercifully)
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae, edited by kehlankr, galaxiaad, bwheeler78, sharkycharming, JohnEightThirtyTwo, GrimTone, robodok, dimaqq, afloyd674, nasses321
Wish You Were Here Lyrics as written by Roger Waters David Gilmour
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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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"
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”
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.
I have always thought the song Wish You Were Here was about how people in relationships (whatever kind: marriages, friendships, bandmates, partnerships,etc.) change over time, and their values/principles change with them. People in relationships don't always change in compatible ways, and I think the song is about grieving the loss of a husband/wife, a good friend, anyone with whom you've had a close relationship who has changed in such a way that they are not the person you fell in love with, made friends with, started a project with, and you miss the "old" them. Henceforth, the title "Wish You Were Here." A person does not have to physically be gone to be gone. It is possible to change to a degree that you really are not the same person you once were. However, you stay in that relationship because it is comfortable all the while wishing that it could be as it once was.
So, I think it is a song about loss and mourning that loss even if it is psychological in nature. At least, that is what that song has always meant for me. Loss and mourning and wishing someone hadn't "gone away."
I am replying to myself......hence the name "ADDGirl." I just wanted to add that the last part of the song is what makes me think of loss and change (either physical or mental)<br /> <br /> "How I wish, how I wish you were here.<br /> We're just two lost souls<br /> Swimming in a fish bowl<br /> Year after year,<br /> Running over the same old ground.<br /> And how we found <br /> The same old fears.<br /> Wish you were here."<br /> <br /> It's like everything is the same but it's not really. Everything is different, but in such a subtle fashion that you sense a bit of the other person/people and the way they were, but they aren't. You talk about the same things, you do the same things, you fear the same things, but at some point either you or they or both stepped out. But, it's comfortable and uncomfortable. Hence, the line "How I wish, how I wish you were here..." but they aren't, and they won't be. You can get as nostalgic as you want about the way it once was, but it won't ever be that way again.<br /> <br /> Then again, I may have it all wrong. Maybe I should be wishing I was here since I stepped out of my "normal" life about 12 years ago :) It could be about oneself, too,I suppose, and wishing that things wouldn't change. Who knows? It's Pink Floyd....<br /> <br /> <br />
@ADDGirl When I first listened to the song I interpreted it as a outlook on your own life. The chances we don't take, the dreams we don't fulfill. The "cold comfort" we are familiar with that stops us from reaching out and taking risks that may have been better for us. <br /> <br /> But after recently losing my closest friend, i've fallen into the painful nostalgia. I came back to this song and I find my interpretation of it has changed all together. You have explained it perfectly!!
@ADDGirl I am sorry to hear of your friend. I am currently dealing with something similar. A very good and close friend of about 30 years is dying and has become very depressed. He used to be the life of the party, but he is no longer. I do miss him a great deal; I just try to remember how he used to be and sometimes I do cry over the "loss" of one of my best friends. "Wish You Were Here" has always had the effect of making me think about the past and how different the present is. It has always made me really think. The whole album makes me think about change and loss and trying to get through it the best you can. <br /> <br /> Again. I am sorry to hear of your friend. It's hard to lose people you love.<br /> <br /> Namaste, <br /> ADDgirl
@ADDGirl
@ADDGirl