"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.
Birds
Birds
This is not a cornhusk doll
dipped in blood in the moonlight
Like what happen in America
This is us our eyelids snagged
dipped in mob in the daylight
Like what happen in America
The breasts are still heavy
The legs long and straight
The upper lip remains short
The teeth are too small
The eyeside is green
The hair long and black
Still coming through
Still coming through
She knows this room
She can navigate it in the dark
She entered the Palazzo at night by a side door
to ascend in a lift to the upper floor
She lies on the bed
Looking up not yet seeing
the signs of the zodiac painted in gold on the blue vaulted ceiling
His enormous eyes as he arrives
Coming nearer in the surrounding darkness
His strange beliefs about the moon
Its influence upon men of affairs
The danger of its cold light on your face while you were sleeping
She'll eclipse it with her head
Stroke him until he sleeps
Until he has nothing to do among men of affairs
Sometime before dawn
Her bare feet cross the floor
She gazes from the window
At the fountain in the courtyard
"Sometimes I feel like a swallow
a swallow which by some mistake
has gotten into an attic
and knocks its head against the walls in terror"
This is not a rabbit skinned
with a body of silver
Like what happen in America
This is not a terrapin
with its shell torn away
Like what happen in America
The breasts are still heavy
The legs long and straight
The upper lip remains short
The teeth still too small
The eyeside is green
The hair long and black
Still coming through
Still coming through
The mood soon changed
in the clear morning air
A man came up towards the body
and poked it with a stick
It rocked stiffly
and twisted around at the end of the rope
Finer than a hair from every side
Finer than a hair
Birds
Birds
This is just a cornhusk doll
dipped in blood
in the moonlight
This is just a cornhusk doll
This morning in my room a little swallow was trapped
It flew around desperately until it fell exhausted on my bed
I picked it up
so as not to frighten it
I opened the window
Then I opened
my hand
Birds
This is not a cornhusk doll
dipped in blood in the moonlight
Like what happen in America
This is us our eyelids snagged
dipped in mob in the daylight
Like what happen in America
The breasts are still heavy
The legs long and straight
The upper lip remains short
The teeth are too small
The eyeside is green
The hair long and black
Still coming through
Still coming through
She knows this room
She can navigate it in the dark
She entered the Palazzo at night by a side door
to ascend in a lift to the upper floor
She lies on the bed
Looking up not yet seeing
the signs of the zodiac painted in gold on the blue vaulted ceiling
His enormous eyes as he arrives
Coming nearer in the surrounding darkness
His strange beliefs about the moon
Its influence upon men of affairs
The danger of its cold light on your face while you were sleeping
She'll eclipse it with her head
Stroke him until he sleeps
Until he has nothing to do among men of affairs
Sometime before dawn
Her bare feet cross the floor
She gazes from the window
At the fountain in the courtyard
"Sometimes I feel like a swallow
a swallow which by some mistake
has gotten into an attic
and knocks its head against the walls in terror"
This is not a rabbit skinned
with a body of silver
Like what happen in America
This is not a terrapin
with its shell torn away
Like what happen in America
The breasts are still heavy
The legs long and straight
The upper lip remains short
The teeth still too small
The eyeside is green
The hair long and black
Still coming through
Still coming through
The mood soon changed
in the clear morning air
A man came up towards the body
and poked it with a stick
It rocked stiffly
and twisted around at the end of the rope
Finer than a hair from every side
Finer than a hair
Birds
Birds
This is just a cornhusk doll
dipped in blood
in the moonlight
This is just a cornhusk doll
This morning in my room a little swallow was trapped
It flew around desperately until it fell exhausted on my bed
I picked it up
so as not to frighten it
I opened the window
Then I opened
my hand
Lyrics submitted by oswaldtherabbit
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Wow, it's weird to go on this song and find my own first impression of it!
Just to add some context- "Clara" refers to Clara Petacci, who was Mussolini's mistress who was hanged alongside him. The woman- and swallow- in the whole narrative is supposed to be about her! And I guess that implies that the man in it is Mussolini. The parts about hanging bodies kind of implies that.
thanks for that it explais a lot! it certainly captures the horror of those times. on the documentary about scot walker it shows him hitting an animal carcass with bats which you can hear on this song.