"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.
Have you heard the dogs at night
Somewhere on the hill
Chasing some poor criminal
And I guess they're out to kill
Oh there must be shackles on his feet
And mother in his eyes
Stumbling through the devil-dark
With the hound pack in full cry
Have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
Now have you ever seen the white teeth gleam
While you lie on a cold damp ground
You're taking in the face of a rifle butt
While the wardens hold you down
And you've never seen a friend in years
Oh it turns your heart to stone
You jump the walls and the dogs run free
And the grave's gonna be your home
Oh, have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs, ooh
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
Ooh, have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
Somewhere on the hill
Chasing some poor criminal
And I guess they're out to kill
Oh there must be shackles on his feet
And mother in his eyes
Stumbling through the devil-dark
With the hound pack in full cry
Have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
Now have you ever seen the white teeth gleam
While you lie on a cold damp ground
You're taking in the face of a rifle butt
While the wardens hold you down
And you've never seen a friend in years
Oh it turns your heart to stone
You jump the walls and the dogs run free
And the grave's gonna be your home
Oh, have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs, ooh
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
Ooh, have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law
Are you blind to the winds of change
Don't you hear him any more
Praying Lord you got to help me
I am never gonna sin again
Just take these chains from around my legs
Sweet Jesus I'll be your friend
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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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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 don't think this song is really telling the listener to either have mercy or not on the criminal, rather just about how the criminal feels at being hunted, and pretty much knowing he's going to be caught before the night is out. So, if he finds an old house on the moors or something, he would be so desperate and pleading to warrant a song about these feelings (?).
I think that this song is a pleading apology for forgiveness from someone that thinks you have wronged them. I once put it on a mix album for a woman that stopped talking to me after I told her that I loved her.
I feel that these lyrics are far more meaningful in this decade than before. In the U.S., we have a huge population of prisoners, and many of those are people of color serving exorbitant terms for simple infractions. And it seems we've brought back the old debtors prisons, as well. The U.S. is sliding back into the dark ages one step at a time. So, once again, I do believe Bernie Taupin, genius lyricist, wrote a song that lives beyond the 70s. And Elton brilliantly put it to music (OH what a musician!).