"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.
Lying like needles on forest earth
Euphoric rush trees bend to pray for us
I'm sputtering like cold machines?
Late for the birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
Ritual
You can drive my tail to watch the circus
A birth ritual, a birth of idiots
Now I woke up blessed and good strives for heartache
Marked for the death ritual
Ritual
Ritual
As you start the song and face this garden
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
I took the drug to make me stay
And now everything dies in shyness
The snake retreats admits defeat
And waits for the birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
As you start the song and face this garden
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
Shining light
Child's highs
Mark his sides
Bright until the newness wears off
As you start the song and face this garden?
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
Ritual
Euphoric rush trees bend to pray for us
I'm sputtering like cold machines?
Late for the birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
Ritual
You can drive my tail to watch the circus
A birth ritual, a birth of idiots
Now I woke up blessed and good strives for heartache
Marked for the death ritual
Ritual
Ritual
As you start the song and face this garden
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
I took the drug to make me stay
And now everything dies in shyness
The snake retreats admits defeat
And waits for the birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
As you start the song and face this garden
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
Shining light
Child's highs
Mark his sides
Bright until the newness wears off
As you start the song and face this garden?
I light a cigarette before the execution
Now you see your crime for every miracle
Add another drug at every birth ritual
Ritual
Ritual
Ritual
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Fast Car
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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”
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I think this is kind of about mortality and how after birth, your whole life is leading towards your death no matter how long you try to make it or whatever you accomplish.
Kind of like Pink Floyd talks about in the song "Time" or Iron Maiden in "The Clairvoyant"
No matter what the lyrics mean, this song completely and absolutely rocks \m/
@Alice_in_Soundweezer Totally agree ,I saw some really early B+W footage from an early gig in Seattle the other day featuring this track and it was incredible..Chris Cornell England loves and misses you ,RIP x
I think the overall premise of the song is that despite different, customs, religions and life experiences, the only two true rites of passage for all of humanity are birth and death. That is why nature prays for us. Everything else is the "circus" that Cornell references. Being "driven by the tail" reminds me of circus elephants walking in a circle holding each other's tails. It has no definite beginning or end. and represents what we know of the life cycle.
The "shining light" is coming from the womb/actual birth and into the world. "Child highs" relate to innocence and newness. "Mark his sides" is referencing being marked for death/exodus....
I think the "garden" is a cemetery and the "song" the death march. I think the "lighting the cigarette" is coming to grips with dying.("execution") Kind of like how Dennis Hopper asked Walkin for a Chesterfield before getting executed in True Romance. Coincidentally, Soundgarden's Outshined is in that movie. I think the "crimes" are all the things done wrong in life that could determine passage to Heaven.
The only thing I can associate with "miracle" is the miracle of birth.
"Serpent" could be Satan trying to steal your soul right up to the eleventh hour and retreating when you take the "drug" or leap of religious faith that you will be granted entrance to Heaven. Serpents and snakes appear often in Cornell's lyrics. I believe he had a lot of personal conflict about whether he was inherently a good or hedonistic human being.
While the above is a how I interpret the song, there is also a part of me that believes there may be a tie to reincarnation.
I think this song might be about pagans calling on the natural world.
I have just read the lyrincs for the first time even though Ive heard the song many times and man are the lyrics graphic.
Yeah his voice is really high but it seems like that in most of soundgardens songs. Like he is screaming into the microphone but the actual strength of his voice is masked by the surrounding instruments.
I promise a reward to anyone who finds a coherent concrete meaning of this song!!! (and no generic interpretations like "sex", "drugs" or "free mind flow")
this song is heavy, nasty, sick, etc...
sorry mate but i am not getting much from this i think it may be a personal joke or personal phrase, i think he is talking about sex as a birth ritual and he is describing our culture in a disturbing way. i hate to say it but lines like 'you can drive my tail' and 'Euphoric rush', I'm sputtering it really suggests sex and then saying that we are just tools(Like cold machines) in reproduction when all that is going to happen to us is death 'And good strives for heart ache Marked for the death ritual, ritual, ritual" it seems purposely clear as mud i don't think it is made for an easy or linear interpretation
quite hard to say what its about but it has some outrageous singing and the lyrics are awesome. cornell's voice is so high on this i knew hardly any of the lyrics until now!
I too have wondered what the f**k this song is about. I found this website with a detailed interpretation by another SG fan, and found it rather interesting (see below) geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Pit/2648/ritual.html
"I took the drug To make me stay And now everything Dies in shyness"
I always thought this verse said:
"I took the drug, to make me see, now everything is doubt and shadow"
I kind of like that better