"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.
The virgin mary on a chain
Has hit me in the mouth again
As we explore the carnal score
Of sacred and profane
Sulky boy won't drink his milk
Mothers breast beneath the silk
Remains untouched it's way too much
Reject all of that ilk
[Chorus]
I have to say it makes me wonder
If you are holding me
To the same blue flame that you are under
I feel you scolding me
Your virgin mary's in the way
Hallucinate her face by day
Obscure the view in front of you
It's me here made of clay
You're playing near that line so thin,
Austerity? or just give in
To endless appetite,
Embrace that white oblivion?
[Chorus]
I have to say it makes me wonder
If you were holding me
To that cold blue flame that you are under
When you were holding me
Has hit me in the mouth again
As we explore the carnal score
Of sacred and profane
Sulky boy won't drink his milk
Mothers breast beneath the silk
Remains untouched it's way too much
Reject all of that ilk
[Chorus]
I have to say it makes me wonder
If you are holding me
To the same blue flame that you are under
I feel you scolding me
Your virgin mary's in the way
Hallucinate her face by day
Obscure the view in front of you
It's me here made of clay
You're playing near that line so thin,
Austerity? or just give in
To endless appetite,
Embrace that white oblivion?
[Chorus]
I have to say it makes me wonder
If you were holding me
To that cold blue flame that you are under
When you were holding me
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Fast Car
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I think this might be about a relationship with someone who's super religious. They want to be chaste but stray ever closer to the line between chaste and non-chaste. She wants to be the most important thing to them but she isn't, the Virgin Mary is. That's what I'm getting from this song.
I think it's about two people who had sex (or near enough), one of whom is less comfortable with it conceptually and idealizes some other woman. The narrator points out that she's right there, in flesh and bone, no distant pure ideal; and seems to hint that he's up against a choice, and sex with her is an option; she seems to feel he is judgmental of her on the basis of what's passed between them.