"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.
Each of these old light leaves is dirt,
barely held together by
tiny bone hands that used to be alive
Holding hands
loose gripped
at the deja vu dream scene end
of a lifelong relationship
These light leaves
is my hair on the bathroom floor,
my smaller selves down the sewer somewhere,
under berkeley, cincinatti, or on tour
Airplane rear
and hotel lobby ladies rooms: beware,
as these light leaves bagged up in plastic,
never to decompose or fertilize
When my balls are finally big enough to do it
I don't want no casket, no saddle,
no seethrough plastic mask,
no casket, no saddle,
no seethrough plastic mask
And when I finally do it
I wanna do the dirt
like the dead leaves do
and if you do leave the earth
when the earth leaves you
cold and hard as a marble table top
with nothing on top,
there's no hip-hip-hop-hooray
keeping Heaven's golden-barbed gateway,
no bright confetti, high-step march, ticker tape parade
There's no mound of clouds to lounge on,
no mound of clouds to lounge on
barely held together by
tiny bone hands that used to be alive
Holding hands
loose gripped
at the deja vu dream scene end
of a lifelong relationship
These light leaves
is my hair on the bathroom floor,
my smaller selves down the sewer somewhere,
under berkeley, cincinatti, or on tour
Airplane rear
and hotel lobby ladies rooms: beware,
as these light leaves bagged up in plastic,
never to decompose or fertilize
When my balls are finally big enough to do it
I don't want no casket, no saddle,
no seethrough plastic mask,
no casket, no saddle,
no seethrough plastic mask
And when I finally do it
I wanna do the dirt
like the dead leaves do
and if you do leave the earth
when the earth leaves you
cold and hard as a marble table top
with nothing on top,
there's no hip-hip-hop-hooray
keeping Heaven's golden-barbed gateway,
no bright confetti, high-step march, ticker tape parade
There's no mound of clouds to lounge on,
no mound of clouds to lounge on
Lyrics submitted by onechad
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I disagree about the masturbation thing. I think that he is saying after he dies, he doesn't want to be buried or anything. His body is kind of just going to decompose and parts of it are going to go everywhere from airplanes to bathrooms. It is similar to the way leaves fall off trees and then become part of the earth. His body is going to go back to nature, it won't be lounging around in heaven.