"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.
This is the room, this is the wall
This is the body I've been hoping for
These are the words I've been longing just to say
So this is my goal, the end of my life
This is the feeling that won't be amassed
Oh my God what have I done this time
Oh my God what have I done this time
The things that you find, the [tug at the sky]
The feeling, the longing, the very [respine]
Oh my God what have we done this time
Oh my God what have we done this time (this time yeah)
This is the body I've been hoping for
These are the words I've been longing just to say
So this is my goal, the end of my life
This is the feeling that won't be amassed
Oh my God what have I done this time
Oh my God what have I done this time
The things that you find, the [tug at the sky]
The feeling, the longing, the very [respine]
Oh my God what have we done this time
Oh my God what have we done this time (this time yeah)
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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.
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
I interpret this song as a reference to a nuclear conflict. As if it were the day after a nuclear catastrophe and someone asked “Oh my god! What have I done this time\'” The title of the song “The New Stone Age” seems to corroborate this interpretation, because after World War III we would witness the end of civilization, as we know it, and we would all return to the Stone Age.\nIt was the end of 1981, the cold war was at its height, there was a sense of danger in the air and everyone feared the worst: that the two world blocs would go to war, which with the sophisticated nuclear weapons that were known to exist would lead us everyone to a new Stone Age.
This song is definitely about regret, and how a descision you made will destroy your life. "This is the feeling they warnned me about" hits home every time. Upon the little segment of my life that I got into OMD, I didn't have a special fondness with "We" songs (there's a female backup singer in harmony, for those who haven't heard this one) - I didn't have anyone that I became one with, and that had a special kind of bond and who would fall down with me, as this song goes. Reguardless, I love it.
Judging by the title (the new stone age) and the refrain (Oh my god, what have we done this time), I would say this song is about nuclear proliferation with the first verse being about the last things you would see before death, the second verse dealing with the leaders of the world feeling remorse, and the final verse deals with the realization that everything you know love and hate is gone.
"This is the room, this is the wall This is the body I've been hoping for These are the words I've been longing just to say So this is my goal, the aim of my life"
To love somebody
"Oh my God what have I done this time Oh my God what have I done this time"
But there is a problem of guilt ie to fuck your best friend's one?
"The things that you've done You don't understand The feeling the longing The failing it's gone"
Hard to realize how you gone there, why, and how it looks futile then, postcoitum guilt.
"Oh my God what have we done this time"
But I won't take the guilt alone
I interpret this song as a reference to a nuclear conflict. As if it were the day after a nuclear catastrophe and someone asked “Oh my god! What have I done this time\'” The title of the song “The New Stone Age” seems to corroborate this interpretation, because after World War III we would witness the end of civilization, as we know it, and we would all return to the Stone Age.\nIt was the end of 1981, the cold war was at its height, there was a sense of danger in the air and everyone feared the worst: that the two world blocs would go to war, which with the sophisticated nuclear weapons that were known to exist would lead us everyone to a new Stone Age.