"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.
In a world of no ones
I'll be the freak
Turn and hide from the mask you see
Misshapen face of fear
I will be your obscenity
I will be the depraved
I will be your deepest fear
That lights the dark that you so crave
Created in honor, in honor to live
Invisible, terror descends
The deepest fear come true
One false move and you know you'll fall
The abyss of nightmares gapes below you
Hideous to look upon
A deformed face, a bastard son
A pantomime, a colorful tale
Yet in this theater, no beauty prevails
How could they do this to me?
My Lord, he never cared
Screaming for help and I was not saved
Tried to trust but I found despair
They have despised me since the day I was born
Reviled by truth, their minds too small
Tearing open blinded sightless eyes
Only death is real the true demise
Unquenchable thirst never slaked
Set loose the storm within me
It rages on
I'll obliterate all you doubters
With my hammers of twisted truth
Drive the nails deeper into your hands
Feed the sickness, destroying you
Vomit the beast upon the unsuspecting world
Surprise on their faces is joy to behold
Try to silence me, but killing me now won't work
Eternal heretics forever speak
I am the disease
I am that which rots inside
Festering within
There is no cure for my plague
And though I die in vain
I die with open eyes
Take the grave this sight from me
Sweet silence of the obscene
Specter of insanity looms
Burning pain consumes me
Vile hatred, the truth will out
Heaving flesh, mine to create
Unquenchable thirst never slaked
Set loose the storm with
I'll be the freak
Turn and hide from the mask you see
Misshapen face of fear
I will be your obscenity
I will be the depraved
I will be your deepest fear
That lights the dark that you so crave
Created in honor, in honor to live
Invisible, terror descends
The deepest fear come true
One false move and you know you'll fall
The abyss of nightmares gapes below you
Hideous to look upon
A deformed face, a bastard son
A pantomime, a colorful tale
Yet in this theater, no beauty prevails
How could they do this to me?
My Lord, he never cared
Screaming for help and I was not saved
Tried to trust but I found despair
They have despised me since the day I was born
Reviled by truth, their minds too small
Tearing open blinded sightless eyes
Only death is real the true demise
Unquenchable thirst never slaked
Set loose the storm within me
It rages on
I'll obliterate all you doubters
With my hammers of twisted truth
Drive the nails deeper into your hands
Feed the sickness, destroying you
Vomit the beast upon the unsuspecting world
Surprise on their faces is joy to behold
Try to silence me, but killing me now won't work
Eternal heretics forever speak
I am the disease
I am that which rots inside
Festering within
There is no cure for my plague
And though I die in vain
I die with open eyes
Take the grave this sight from me
Sweet silence of the obscene
Specter of insanity looms
Burning pain consumes me
Vile hatred, the truth will out
Heaving flesh, mine to create
Unquenchable thirst never slaked
Set loose the storm with
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Fast Car
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