"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.
Yeah
They say home is where the hate is, my dome is where fate is
I stroll where souls get lost like Vegas
Seen through the eyes of rebel glasses
Pray to God that my arms reach the masses
The young smoke grass in grassless jungles
Rubber band together in cashless bundles
We wear strugglin' chains, divided only hustle remains
Makin' sense of it we hustle for change
Revolution ain't a game it's another name, for life fightin'
Someone to stay in they corner like Mike Tyson
Hypes fightin' for hits to heighten they hell
Don't he know he could only get as high as he fell?
Show money becomes bail, relationships become jail
Children are unheld
I wish love was for sale, "Behold the Pale, Horse"
Got me trapped like R. Kell', I bail and it
"Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again
I'm on my way home
I left three days ago, but no one seems to know I'm gone
Home is where the hatred is, home is filled with pain and it
Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again"
They say home is where the hate is, my dome is where fate is
I stroll where souls get lost like Vegas
Seen through the eyes of rebel glasses
Pray to God that my arms reach the masses
The young smoke grass in grassless jungles
Rubber band together in cashless bundles
We wear strugglin' chains, divided only hustle remains
Makin' sense of it we hustle for change
Revolution ain't a game it's another name, for life fightin'
Someone to stay in they corner like Mike Tyson
Hypes fightin' for hits to heighten they hell
Don't he know he could only get as high as he fell?
Show money becomes bail, relationships become jail
Children are unheld
I wish love was for sale, "Behold the Pale, Horse"
Got me trapped like R. Kell', I bail and it
"Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again
I'm on my way home
I left three days ago, but no one seems to know I'm gone
Home is where the hatred is, home is filled with pain and it
Might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again"
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love this song. also cuz i'm from chicago too, but moved about 2 yrs ago to san fran