"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.
Letting loose the lunatics - wasn’t the greatest of ideas
Giving them plans and money to squander
Should have been the worst of our fears
The dream life luxury living was a pleasant no. 10 whim
But somewhere down the line of production
They let out human beings
They were going to build communities
It was going to be pie in the sky
But the piss stench hallways and broken down lifts
Say the planners dream went wrong
If people were made to live in boxes
God would have given them string
To tie around their selves at bed time
And stop their dreams falling through the ceiling
And the public school boy computers
Keep spewing out our future
The house in the country designs the 14th floor
Old Mrs. Smith don’t get out much more
Coitus interrupt us cause of next doors rows
Your washing gets nicked when the lights go out
Baby’s scream in the nightmare throng
But planners just get embarrassed when their plans go wrong
Giving them plans and money to squander
Should have been the worst of our fears
The dream life luxury living was a pleasant no. 10 whim
But somewhere down the line of production
They let out human beings
They were going to build communities
It was going to be pie in the sky
But the piss stench hallways and broken down lifts
Say the planners dream went wrong
If people were made to live in boxes
God would have given them string
To tie around their selves at bed time
And stop their dreams falling through the ceiling
And the public school boy computers
Keep spewing out our future
The house in the country designs the 14th floor
Old Mrs. Smith don’t get out much more
Coitus interrupt us cause of next doors rows
Your washing gets nicked when the lights go out
Baby’s scream in the nightmare throng
But planners just get embarrassed when their plans go wrong
Lyrics submitted by planetearth
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Fast Car
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Great version of a great song,
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It's not as bad as some make out.
Really, I think the meaning's pretty obvious. There were some ugly blocks of flats down the road from where i grew up. Horrible place. obviously it was the development of these 'boxes' that Weller's on about, designed by people who can drive home to their country houses.
I think this is really set in the frame of something that came out after this song. In 1983, the BBC did an expose about how many of the blocks of flats made in the 1960's weren't built very well and falling apart. They were supposed to have been solid concrete walls put into place by cranes. However, many of these walls were quite shoddy and had gaps in them. This, compounded by construction cover-ups, was causing many of these buildings to break apart by the late 1970's. At the time this song was released, everything was still being covered up, but eventually they couldn't cover it up anymore.
The calypso setting was probably due to minorities (many those of dark skin from the Caribbean) got the worst of the flats.
oh dear! what was this about? a dismal song set to a calypso drum and bongos - weller losing the plot big style.