"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.
Among the headstones you played as boys
Crypts and tombs like a roomful of toys
Just up the river from the smoke and the noise
Gethsemane
And there's war-whoops and secret signs in the trees
Estuary smells coming up on the breeze
O perfect endless days like these
O Gethsemane
Sailboat on the Cadie, pushbike on the quay
In your eyes there's fire, in your hand destiny
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Just down the river, into the noise and the smoke
Being daring with the staring, uncaring folk
Who laugh with you, laugh at you, you'll never get the joke
Gethsemane
And they broke your spirit there in the marines
Flushed your head down in the latrines
Frozen in your sacrement, derailed in your teens
Never saw the enemy
And those bosses betrayed, soon let you go
The fire in your eyes, how could they know
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Now you've got your own boys, hell bent for leather
Dead before they're 18, or bitter old men forever
They never saw the halo moon rise over the river
Of Gethsemane
Now there's a pain in your head puts lead in your shoes
Better get it seen to, it's going to be bad news
How did the perfect world get so confused
O Gethsemane
Who sucked out the freedom, days without end
Under the weight of it all you must bend
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Crypts and tombs like a roomful of toys
Just up the river from the smoke and the noise
Gethsemane
And there's war-whoops and secret signs in the trees
Estuary smells coming up on the breeze
O perfect endless days like these
O Gethsemane
Sailboat on the Cadie, pushbike on the quay
In your eyes there's fire, in your hand destiny
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Just down the river, into the noise and the smoke
Being daring with the staring, uncaring folk
Who laugh with you, laugh at you, you'll never get the joke
Gethsemane
And they broke your spirit there in the marines
Flushed your head down in the latrines
Frozen in your sacrement, derailed in your teens
Never saw the enemy
And those bosses betrayed, soon let you go
The fire in your eyes, how could they know
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Now you've got your own boys, hell bent for leather
Dead before they're 18, or bitter old men forever
They never saw the halo moon rise over the river
Of Gethsemane
Now there's a pain in your head puts lead in your shoes
Better get it seen to, it's going to be bad news
How did the perfect world get so confused
O Gethsemane
Who sucked out the freedom, days without end
Under the weight of it all you must bend
â??O be something, be something fine!'
Lyrics submitted by albowlleysinheaven
Gethsemane Lyrics as written by Richard Thompson
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
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"
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Screed is right on the mark with his/her analysis. The name Gethsemane lets us know that this song is about Jesus growing up in a fierce environment, which we know only gets worse as the precious few years wear on. Richard Thompson puts the description of the land and people in modern British slang to throw the listener off the track and in effect create doubt that the song is really about Jesus. Thompson's phrasing turns the mirror on us, an interesting technique to produce the feelings of doubt expressed by Jesus only a short time later on Golgotha.
The music driving Gethsemane 'home' is every bit as powerful as the lyrics.
I did some research on the web and came across an interview that Richard Thompson did for the BBC. He was asked a number of questions by a group of people (maybe an audience). One of the questioners asked about the meaning of Gethsemane. Thompson replied that it could be any city, written about anyone. The remainder of his short answer made me think he was downplaying his reply and, in effect, saying "figure it out for yourself." In the song, Gethsemane is not a town, but is located some distance from a town center. The song lyrics carry the listener through the subject's brief life and the children and adults he deals with, hitting a few "high spots" that parallel the Biblical stories.