"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.
Woe?
Blame it on the rain.
Whoa! Blame it on the name game.
Size up, suit up self-esteem.
Tie-Down. Dress-down fight in the dog-days.
Wolf Nights?
Introspections and longing are a feverish solitaire.
In fact, it's a lot like masturbation.
When you win, you beat yourself.
See-Saw, hear/say. Say-Saw, heresay.
Stimulus, responsive.
Stimuli responded.
Let's pick a denfition!
Undue sense of ones own aggrogance or a family of lions? Yea, I'm Afraid. I don't want to die.
Not now. Not ever.
It's a harsh reality, Right?
It's the most offensive truth.
Those songs you'll hear when you're deaf.
What will they sound like when there's no sound at all? Footsteps you see in the dark.
Footsteps you see..
Cat and mouse is a game of subterfuge.
The mind scratches itself to pieces.
Spat-Up. Chew it down or leave the entrails to dry in the sun.
In summation, Fright is nothing more than a collection of preemptive suicides.
Do what you do to be alive.
It's a massacre outside the hole,
wandering three-blind Mrs. Butcher.
Suspense!
"It's that cat, doc, he scares me to death," Confess the mouse to the shrink.
::top::
4) Odds>Evens
I am as old as my tongue.
I am much older than my teeth.
Been neighbors for years but nevertheless not a word was shared.
Just eyes through the blinds.
Venetian. Odds. Evens.
The Flip Read 'Good thing you bet the farm.
Good thing you bet it all!
Those bastards are always bluffing blind no matter what's dealt, drawn, or thorwn down.'
Where do all thoughts go to lay themselves down for good?
Perhaps they will rot with the body
or float up to the sky by the trial of the soul. Auto Pilot, take 'em there by surprise!
Go out in a blaze, a blaze of glory.
Leave without a trace.
Leave without a flaw.
We'll catch up with those thoughts when we catch up with ourselves,
as we catch up with yourselves
catching up with each other.
Well blow me down,
blow me back to earth.
As fast as half-way between go and stop!
Throw your mama from the train or my mom will shoot.
::top::
5) The Wake
In hind sight for sore eyes on the prize fighter.
Pilot, gunner, navigator, the sky.
The mountains luke-warm,
Metaphorically speaking, speaking of metaphors... The simile is a front-runner.
The simile lacks a blue-print.
With an enchanting proposal,
one foot led the other, congruent.
To think your only god would flaunt you.
To think your only god would fight you!
Raise a frail fist at the creator.
Scream "I want to meet my maker!"
Persistently the ground tends to make way for you. Exchange all those hats for a hairline.
Define the cycles of existence to think and act just as we do.
We're blasphemous separatists de-railing the trains of thought.
To think your only god would flaunt you.
To think your only god would...
Reparations for misopportunities.
Pay some respect: The transitional currency. Reimbursed.
Sleeping soundly.
Should have soaked it all in,
absorbed the pouring rains past.
Let sheets blanket the suits so the dust can settle in sorrow.
Last showing...
::top::
6) Human Bodies
This place, more orange nowadays.
The ashen badlands redeem.
Your face, through magnififed glass,
still draws me in.
Those big eyes draw me in, distrophy.
Stale again.
Entropy: Care so much for kamakaze co-pilots who wear helmets.
Encapsulated but commingling.
Privaltized public apologies that are bought and sold.
Packaged and store in atticks for addicts.
Cold hands stumming the mile-high regrets. Perplexed? Perhaps! Impossible to postpone. Plights of professional penmanship.
Unopinionated routines,
worn knees in a crawling season.
Easy to imitate the oaks: shave a mountain man's beard.
Insidious sight-seers holding candles to those clutching torches.
Torture.
How will they put out the flames?
Once proud to be the anxious, naive marionette. but in time, became the shrewd, arthritic puppeteer.
Compare and Contrast.
Were you better off then as you alienated your limbs?
Alienated your purpose to flail?
Blame it on the rain.
Whoa! Blame it on the name game.
Size up, suit up self-esteem.
Tie-Down. Dress-down fight in the dog-days.
Wolf Nights?
Introspections and longing are a feverish solitaire.
In fact, it's a lot like masturbation.
When you win, you beat yourself.
See-Saw, hear/say. Say-Saw, heresay.
Stimulus, responsive.
Stimuli responded.
Let's pick a denfition!
Undue sense of ones own aggrogance or a family of lions? Yea, I'm Afraid. I don't want to die.
Not now. Not ever.
It's a harsh reality, Right?
It's the most offensive truth.
Those songs you'll hear when you're deaf.
What will they sound like when there's no sound at all? Footsteps you see in the dark.
Footsteps you see..
Cat and mouse is a game of subterfuge.
The mind scratches itself to pieces.
Spat-Up. Chew it down or leave the entrails to dry in the sun.
In summation, Fright is nothing more than a collection of preemptive suicides.
Do what you do to be alive.
It's a massacre outside the hole,
wandering three-blind Mrs. Butcher.
Suspense!
"It's that cat, doc, he scares me to death," Confess the mouse to the shrink.
::top::
4) Odds>Evens
I am as old as my tongue.
I am much older than my teeth.
Been neighbors for years but nevertheless not a word was shared.
Just eyes through the blinds.
Venetian. Odds. Evens.
The Flip Read 'Good thing you bet the farm.
Good thing you bet it all!
Those bastards are always bluffing blind no matter what's dealt, drawn, or thorwn down.'
Where do all thoughts go to lay themselves down for good?
Perhaps they will rot with the body
or float up to the sky by the trial of the soul. Auto Pilot, take 'em there by surprise!
Go out in a blaze, a blaze of glory.
Leave without a trace.
Leave without a flaw.
We'll catch up with those thoughts when we catch up with ourselves,
as we catch up with yourselves
catching up with each other.
Well blow me down,
blow me back to earth.
As fast as half-way between go and stop!
Throw your mama from the train or my mom will shoot.
::top::
5) The Wake
In hind sight for sore eyes on the prize fighter.
Pilot, gunner, navigator, the sky.
The mountains luke-warm,
Metaphorically speaking, speaking of metaphors... The simile is a front-runner.
The simile lacks a blue-print.
With an enchanting proposal,
one foot led the other, congruent.
To think your only god would flaunt you.
To think your only god would fight you!
Raise a frail fist at the creator.
Scream "I want to meet my maker!"
Persistently the ground tends to make way for you. Exchange all those hats for a hairline.
Define the cycles of existence to think and act just as we do.
We're blasphemous separatists de-railing the trains of thought.
To think your only god would flaunt you.
To think your only god would...
Reparations for misopportunities.
Pay some respect: The transitional currency. Reimbursed.
Sleeping soundly.
Should have soaked it all in,
absorbed the pouring rains past.
Let sheets blanket the suits so the dust can settle in sorrow.
Last showing...
::top::
6) Human Bodies
This place, more orange nowadays.
The ashen badlands redeem.
Your face, through magnififed glass,
still draws me in.
Those big eyes draw me in, distrophy.
Stale again.
Entropy: Care so much for kamakaze co-pilots who wear helmets.
Encapsulated but commingling.
Privaltized public apologies that are bought and sold.
Packaged and store in atticks for addicts.
Cold hands stumming the mile-high regrets. Perplexed? Perhaps! Impossible to postpone. Plights of professional penmanship.
Unopinionated routines,
worn knees in a crawling season.
Easy to imitate the oaks: shave a mountain man's beard.
Insidious sight-seers holding candles to those clutching torches.
Torture.
How will they put out the flames?
Once proud to be the anxious, naive marionette. but in time, became the shrewd, arthritic puppeteer.
Compare and Contrast.
Were you better off then as you alienated your limbs?
Alienated your purpose to flail?
Lyrics submitted by j_o_e_b_
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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"
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,
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
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.