"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.
Poison Oak, some boyhood bravery
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28, edited by kangaroo98, darkeyelewj
Poison Oak Lyrics as written by Conor Oberst
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I don't really know how to explain my interpretation...But somehow I feel like he is singing about himself. I realize there are fragments of the song that quite obviously go against my theory, but to me this is about him being torn between his true identity and what others feel he should be. He never loved himself more than when he left...Left the pain that was the only constant where he was before. But no matter how far he ran, there was still that baggage. The baggage that Conor sings through first person as. He is two separate entities...The one he sings the song through, and then the one he is actually singing ABOUT.
The sound of loneliness makes him happier...He just wants to be alone. One person. One being. One interpretation of human existence.