"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.
I'm going away forever
I'm going away forever
Never coming back this way
Never coming back to this place
What I need is a heaven
What I really need is a heaven
A place to go where I can really be
A place to go where I can really be
Where I can really be
Dreaming my life away counts for nothing
Dreaming my life away counts for nothing
But nothing ever is the end
No nothing ever is the end
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me yeeaah
It's sure been a full life for me
I'm going away forever
Never coming back this way
Never coming back to this place
What I need is a heaven
What I really need is a heaven
A place to go where I can really be
A place to go where I can really be
Where I can really be
Dreaming my life away counts for nothing
Dreaming my life away counts for nothing
But nothing ever is the end
No nothing ever is the end
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me
It's sure been a full life for me baby
It's sure been a full life for me yeh
It's sure been a full life for me yeeaah
It's sure been a full life for me
Lyrics submitted by OLPfanboy69
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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"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
i agee with those claiming it's about contemplating suicide, but the phrase "Dreaming my life away counts for nothing" makes me think that once or more everyone has thinked of leaving his life (one way or another) but noone does it. so just dreaming about it counts for nothing.
it's a sad song, but hearing him say "It's sure been a full life for me baby" is inspiring too. i hope that everybody could say that. i hope some day i will be able to say that.
so this song could be also about living the day and taking actions. it's a long shot but i like thinking of it this way.
it's just a thought.
BEST SONG BY FRUSCIANTE EVER!! LOVE IT
What do you think of it?
so sad. Anyone knows what it means?
John, you are the man!!Pure genius......
My interpretation. I hope it helps:
He imagines and reflects on his death and becomes totally aware of the fact that he will never be able to return ("I'm going away forever") - at least not in this human form with his personality etc ("Never coming back this way").
The verse around the line "What I need is a heaven" depicts his longing for salvation. "Dreaming my life away counts for nothing" is this urge in him that makes him want to awaken from illusion. He then sees that death doesn't mean a total end, but rather is just a dropping of this human body ("But nothing ever is the end").
In the end he can accept and be content with the way he has lived his life ("It's sure been a full life for me").
sounds to me like someone contemplating suicide...
Have you heard the song?
it makes me feel like if you wnat to die then heaven is always open or something like that mabey more deeper
i agree with heaven's mistake
This is an incredible song. he uses heavan to represent a place where he can just be himself and people will love him for that. Very powerful
my favorite frusciante song. This man is a fucking genius