"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 believe this song is about Laura Jane Grace. The singer and musician of the band "Against Me". My boyfriend read Laura Jane Grace's book "Tranny" and in the book Conor Oberst was mentioned as a close friend and one of the first and only people to know about her cross dressing and wanting to become a woman. "In Polaroids you were dressed in woman's clothes, were you made ashamed why'd you lock them in a drawer." Laura Jane Grace also talks about struggling with heroin and drugs in the book. "And you wrote bad checks, just to fill your arm"