"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.
One night we lay beside each other, so close to a sweat
With two fans circling overhead, we sleep on borrowed time
And the traffic lights direct empty roads, the stars can't break the city sky
But they still try despite what they know is already true
And tomorrow we'll take aim, just like a storm waiting for a calm
I can feel everything coming in my chest, my heart's already pounding
My head's on far-off highways, sixteen years old, on a road that never ends
Might drive into something that looks like a sunset, and it lasts forever, and I never look
Back
From Hoboken to L.A.
From Portland to Gainesville
From the Great Plains to Niagara
Route 66 straight to California
Electric lights carry the night
We move in 4/4 time
Our feet on wheels and in the sky
Yes we're going cause we'd die if we stayed here
And those dying dreams will carry what's good, and real, and pure
And the rest can burn in hell
And for the four-year-old girl found dead in a dumpster
Shot by her mother, her eulogy,
The sound of construction through head-to-head traffic
Today is just another day
And me and my friends are just growing into the drunks and the liars that we've always
Hated
Every shortcoming has trapped us, every mistake is now our own infinite failure
So we steal every chance we get
Every advantage is taken when no one's looking
We hide behind closed doors, and we don't stop until
We are the people we've decided we should be
I want to be a shot heard round the world, fucking unstoppable
This distance is not something we'll regret
From here, and now, and today, and forever, and days after that till the very end
With two fans circling overhead, we sleep on borrowed time
And the traffic lights direct empty roads, the stars can't break the city sky
But they still try despite what they know is already true
And tomorrow we'll take aim, just like a storm waiting for a calm
I can feel everything coming in my chest, my heart's already pounding
My head's on far-off highways, sixteen years old, on a road that never ends
Might drive into something that looks like a sunset, and it lasts forever, and I never look
Back
From Hoboken to L.A.
From Portland to Gainesville
From the Great Plains to Niagara
Route 66 straight to California
Electric lights carry the night
We move in 4/4 time
Our feet on wheels and in the sky
Yes we're going cause we'd die if we stayed here
And those dying dreams will carry what's good, and real, and pure
And the rest can burn in hell
And for the four-year-old girl found dead in a dumpster
Shot by her mother, her eulogy,
The sound of construction through head-to-head traffic
Today is just another day
And me and my friends are just growing into the drunks and the liars that we've always
Hated
Every shortcoming has trapped us, every mistake is now our own infinite failure
So we steal every chance we get
Every advantage is taken when no one's looking
We hide behind closed doors, and we don't stop until
We are the people we've decided we should be
I want to be a shot heard round the world, fucking unstoppable
This distance is not something we'll regret
From here, and now, and today, and forever, and days after that till the very end
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
this song is about troubles and trying to accomplish goals and dreams that you set back in the day. i think
whatever, it effin rocks. I love the chorus
This song is about me.
I love this song. It's probably one of the most touching things I've ever heard.
this song just takes a bat to ones heart. the brutality and hope portrayed through the song's honesty makes it so f ing awesome. it takes you through a frenzy of emotions with the lyrics and yet at the same time the simplicity of the lonely acoustic keeps everthing heartfelt.
has to be one of against me! s best songs. that 2 or so second pause right before the second verse leaves one with so much anticipation as it prepares to take you off of a cliff.i love it.
suprised to see that there are not too many comments on this one.
This song is entitled "Armageddon".
damn near destroyed pretty much hit the nail on the head. This song is amazing.
is it really called Armegeddon? i always thought that people just mistook that little explanation for what "Armegeddon" ment as the title for this song. it'll always be "Untitled" to me.
cute song! lyk ii
i was thinking this might relate to how we are killing our planet and contributing to global warming, but then he sings about driving
im confused
The version of this on Live at C.O.R.E. blows the studio one away. So fucking intense.