"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.
Garden Party held today, invites call the debs to play,
Social climbers polish ladders, wayward sons again have fathers,
Edgy eggs and queing cumbers, rudely wakened from their slumber,
Time has come again for slaughter on the lawns by still Cam waters
Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Straafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Oh God not again, not again
Apertifs consumed en masse display their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters, social leeches quoting Chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter where why not and should they oughta
Please don't lie on the grass, unless accompanied by a fellow,
(May I be so bold as to suggest Othello)
Punting on the Cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs Oh please come they say
Rugger is the tops a game for men they say
(They say)
Thank God they say
I'm punting, I'm beagling, I'm wining, reclining, I'm rucking, I'm fucking
So welcome, it's a party
Angie chalks another blue, mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash
Posers pose pressmen flash, flash, flash
Smiles polluted with false charm, locking onto Royal arms,
Society columns now ensured, return to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd
Punting on the Cam, oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say
Oh please do come, oh please do come, they say
Social climbers polish ladders, wayward sons again have fathers,
Edgy eggs and queing cumbers, rudely wakened from their slumber,
Time has come again for slaughter on the lawns by still Cam waters
Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Straafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Oh God not again, not again
Apertifs consumed en masse display their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters, social leeches quoting Chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter where why not and should they oughta
Please don't lie on the grass, unless accompanied by a fellow,
(May I be so bold as to suggest Othello)
Punting on the Cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs Oh please come they say
Rugger is the tops a game for men they say
(They say)
Thank God they say
I'm punting, I'm beagling, I'm wining, reclining, I'm rucking, I'm fucking
So welcome, it's a party
Angie chalks another blue, mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash
Posers pose pressmen flash, flash, flash
Smiles polluted with false charm, locking onto Royal arms,
Society columns now ensured, return to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd
Punting on the Cam, oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say
Oh please do come, oh please do come, they say
Lyrics submitted by agl333, edited by BitterBosh, elida10118
Garden Party Lyrics as written by Mark Kelly Ian Mosley
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Isn't this song about Fish's disgust with the upper social class?
I would not call it disgust. I would call it a pretty accurate description of the people who are supposed to be "upper" class. I would call it a first class observation of the behaviour of the people who believe that public image is more important than the feelings of the individual members of the family. "Social climbers polish ladders. Wayward sons again have fathers". It's not rocket science. Fish has no gripe agains the upper classes. Just pretentiousness