"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.
In the center of the old town is the plaza
where the young boys go with their sledges in the slippery snow.
We begin our little tale of woe with the sledge
all red and trusty, of a plucky little boy called K--
who hooked onto any passing sleigh, till one led him very far away.
'Twas the Snow Queen, iwis, who had taken him hold.
When she gave him a kiss, he no longer felt cold.
She was tall and white with beauty, and she wrapped him in her bearskin coat.
He discovered they could simply float on the air
as if upon a boat.
They abandoned the sleigh as they took to the wing.
With her second kiss, K--
could remember nothing.
And she said to him then, with her icicle breath:
"If I kissed you again, I should kiss you to death."
where the young boys go with their sledges in the slippery snow.
We begin our little tale of woe with the sledge
all red and trusty, of a plucky little boy called K--
who hooked onto any passing sleigh, till one led him very far away.
'Twas the Snow Queen, iwis, who had taken him hold.
When she gave him a kiss, he no longer felt cold.
She was tall and white with beauty, and she wrapped him in her bearskin coat.
He discovered they could simply float on the air
as if upon a boat.
They abandoned the sleigh as they took to the wing.
With her second kiss, K--
could remember nothing.
And she said to him then, with her icicle breath:
"If I kissed you again, I should kiss you to death."
Lyrics submitted by delial
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