"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.
Whatcha trying to say that haven't tried to say before?
You're just another red balloon with a lot of hot gas
Why don't you fuck off?
And you think you've got it worked out
And you think you've got it made
And you trying to play the hero
But you never walk home in the dark
I think it's time for truth
And the truth is you've lost uncle Jimmy
Admit your failure and decline with honor while you can
And you think you've got it sussed out
And you think that we're brain washed
And you're trying for a police state
So you can rule our body and minds
What ever happened to the great empire?
You bastards have turned it into manure
Time for the young to stick together now
I bet you sleep at night with silk sheets and a clean mind
While killers roam the streets in numbers, dressed in blue
And you're trying to hide it from us
But you know what I mean
Bring forward those six pigs
We want to see them swing sod high
You're just another red balloon with a lot of hot gas
Why don't you fuck off?
And you think you've got it worked out
And you think you've got it made
And you trying to play the hero
But you never walk home in the dark
I think it's time for truth
And the truth is you've lost uncle Jimmy
Admit your failure and decline with honor while you can
And you think you've got it sussed out
And you think that we're brain washed
And you're trying for a police state
So you can rule our body and minds
What ever happened to the great empire?
You bastards have turned it into manure
Time for the young to stick together now
I bet you sleep at night with silk sheets and a clean mind
While killers roam the streets in numbers, dressed in blue
And you're trying to hide it from us
But you know what I mean
Bring forward those six pigs
We want to see them swing sod high
Lyrics submitted by planetearth
Time for Truth Lyrics as written by Paul John Weller
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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No comments?! What the hell!
A two fingered salute to all arrogant, oik lefties
@Backhander This certainly contains an attack on the then leader of the Labour Party, James Callaghan “uncle Jimmy”- but to consider him a ‘lefty’ is ignoring the facts. Callaghan was establishment through and through; he led an attack on trade unions and other gains of the left (like progressive education) and introduced monetarist policies even before Thatcher. He was very much opposed by the left. The main gist of the song is an attack on the police and the shocking way the murder of Liddel Towers by Northumbria police was handled. The fact that Paul Weller has always identified with the political left indicates that attempts to see this as a simplistic anti-left lyric is bizarre. It is anti-police and anti-establishment.
@Backhander This certainly contains an attack on the then leader of the Labour Party, James Callaghan “uncle Jimmy”- but to consider him a ‘lefty’ is ignoring the facts. Callaghan was establishment through and through; he led an attack on trade unions and other gains of the left (like progressive education) and introduced monetarist policies even before Thatcher. He was very much opposed by the left. The main gist of the song is an attack on the police and the shocking way the murder of Liddel Towers by Northumbria police was handled. The fact that Paul Weller has always identified with the political left indicates that attempts to see this as a simplistic anti-left lyric is bizarre. It is anti-police and anti-establishment.
I know Uncle Jimmy is the prime minister at that time James Callaghan but what or who are the six pigs he wants to see swing so high ?