"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.
Why can't we let our mouths devour each other? Why can't we turn those miles into inches, letters into breath, years into seconds? (We always said we'd return to the candy coated jungle.) we always said that we would return to see what kind of orchid our heart seeds grew. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go. So pick up the fucking phone. I sent you a letter just the other day my friend, It said "tonight my body is crucified across the carcus that our love grew. Tonight black feathers float from the sky like it's raining lies. Tonight my lungs are hanging from a telephone wire, choking on the broken digits of a dial tone. (Tonight telephone booths and trucks gawk as my ribcage snaps and snarls like a venus fly trap.) Where did our hearts go? Where did our hearts go? Where did the crows go? Our mouths are limp mouths. We said we'd return for our petrified hearts put our name to the parchment made a pact in the dark. Guaze gagged beaks may pump and beat but sealed inside are secrets screaming to speak, (So open up your chest and let the birds free. so meet me under the deserted desert tree. We'll eat sand crumpets and drink cactus tea, well pretend this dirt is sea.) We ate the white from the wedding, ate the sheets from the bedding, ate the smiles off our children, ate the leather off our birth skin. Have we wasted our whole lives sucking candy coated bullets from the chemical gun? Every car that passes on this crooked highway bears your face on it's grill. Every headlight casts your shadow onto my open hear vigil. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go. They go into fucking skeletons.
Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28
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Fast Car
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Whuddafuck? SOMEONE COMMENT ON THIS SONG!!!! It's effin awesome! I see the blood brothers on tuesday in San Diego =]