"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.
your face crept
into that space
between my reflex and my resolve
kinda like the crevice you don’t notice
til it takes down the damn wall.
and now we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse,
making sure it hasn’t quit on me.
and I’m sorry if you’re thinking that I knew
what I was doing
I guess what I do best is look like I am in control
but tonight, tonight, I am a soft and untamed thing
and I will wrap my breath around you til your exhale comes clean.
I am checking my pulse
I am checking my pulse.
you are the buried penny at the bottom of the pool
so I guess that makes me the fool diving deep for you
I’ll stick you in my pocket
all shiny, all precious, and all not mine
a hidden, forbidden treasure
baby, you’re the worst kind.
cause underneath the surface, all things loom larger
so I’m searching for your edges
to fish you up, ship you up out of the water
and you are that sweet wish that she’s thrown
I would have caught you in the air, girl, had I known.
and now the space between these bodies
surpasses the sum of its parts
so I am crawling in-between these moments
balancing words hoping I don’t get stuck.
and I was just thinking ‘distraction’
now I’m thinking distraction’s a relative thing
cause I was casually splashing
and now I’m a casualty slowly sinking.
cause in hot water, my brain just kinda puckers up
and I’m drowning jaws wide open now cause my mouth
it just won’t seem to shut.
and you might just be a shiny thing
but you are the shiny thing I am pursuing
and when I said "you talk too much"
it was cause there was stuff I’d rather you’d have been doing.
and then you take my breath
I say "hey, I need that to get back to the top"
"but we’re beautiful down here", you say
"you know, girl
the world won’t stop".
and we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse
making sure it hasn’t quit on me.
I am just checking my pulse
making sure it hasn’t quit on me
I am just checking my pulse
making sure she hasn’t quit on me yet.
into that space
between my reflex and my resolve
kinda like the crevice you don’t notice
til it takes down the damn wall.
and now we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse,
making sure it hasn’t quit on me.
and I’m sorry if you’re thinking that I knew
what I was doing
I guess what I do best is look like I am in control
but tonight, tonight, I am a soft and untamed thing
and I will wrap my breath around you til your exhale comes clean.
I am checking my pulse
I am checking my pulse.
you are the buried penny at the bottom of the pool
so I guess that makes me the fool diving deep for you
I’ll stick you in my pocket
all shiny, all precious, and all not mine
a hidden, forbidden treasure
baby, you’re the worst kind.
cause underneath the surface, all things loom larger
so I’m searching for your edges
to fish you up, ship you up out of the water
and you are that sweet wish that she’s thrown
I would have caught you in the air, girl, had I known.
and now the space between these bodies
surpasses the sum of its parts
so I am crawling in-between these moments
balancing words hoping I don’t get stuck.
and I was just thinking ‘distraction’
now I’m thinking distraction’s a relative thing
cause I was casually splashing
and now I’m a casualty slowly sinking.
cause in hot water, my brain just kinda puckers up
and I’m drowning jaws wide open now cause my mouth
it just won’t seem to shut.
and you might just be a shiny thing
but you are the shiny thing I am pursuing
and when I said "you talk too much"
it was cause there was stuff I’d rather you’d have been doing.
and then you take my breath
I say "hey, I need that to get back to the top"
"but we’re beautiful down here", you say
"you know, girl
the world won’t stop".
and we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse
making sure it hasn’t quit on me.
I am just checking my pulse
making sure it hasn’t quit on me
I am just checking my pulse
making sure she hasn’t quit on me yet.
Lyrics submitted by shinigami9
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Fast Car
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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"
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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,
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Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
No additional comments. If this song can get a straight woman hot and bothered than it should work for everyone. Besides, don't you men like to watch two women together ;) (I believe it's in the handbook entitled Man101: the first course in understanding the male psyche:)