"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.
We hit the blue fields
In the blue sedan we didn't get much further
Just as the sun was rising in the mist
We were all alone we didn't need much more
So fast this expidition
So vast this heavy load
With a touch of luck and a sense of need
Seeing the guns and their faces
We look around the open shore
Waiting for something
Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low
This was to be our last ride
With the steel guitar and the love you give me
Underneath the skin a feeling, a breakdown
Well we sat for hours on the crimson sand
Exchanges in the currency of humans bought and sold
And the leaders seem to lose control
Shall we lose ourselves for a reason
Shall we burn ourselves for the answer
Have we found the place that we're looking for
Someone shouted "open the door"
Lookout
Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Feeling of imagination
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low
Shoot high aim low
Nothing you can say
Shoot high let go
Takes me by surprise
Shoot high aim low
Who says's there's got to be a reason
Shoot high let go
Who says there's got to be an answer
We were all alone, we didn't need much more
Shoot high aim low
The sun's so hard on this endless highway
Shoot high let go
Shoot high aim low
I've heard the singers, who sing of love
Shoot high let go
In the blue sedan we never got much further
Shoot high aim low
In the blue sedan we didn't get much further
Just as the sun was rising in the mist
We were all alone we didn't need much more
So fast this expidition
So vast this heavy load
With a touch of luck and a sense of need
Seeing the guns and their faces
We look around the open shore
Waiting for something
Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low
This was to be our last ride
With the steel guitar and the love you give me
Underneath the skin a feeling, a breakdown
Well we sat for hours on the crimson sand
Exchanges in the currency of humans bought and sold
And the leaders seem to lose control
Shall we lose ourselves for a reason
Shall we burn ourselves for the answer
Have we found the place that we're looking for
Someone shouted "open the door"
Lookout
Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Feeling of imagination
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low
Shoot high aim low
Nothing you can say
Shoot high let go
Takes me by surprise
Shoot high aim low
Who says's there's got to be a reason
Shoot high let go
Who says there's got to be an answer
We were all alone, we didn't need much more
Shoot high aim low
The sun's so hard on this endless highway
Shoot high let go
Shoot high aim low
I've heard the singers, who sing of love
Shoot high let go
In the blue sedan we never got much further
Shoot high aim low
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Cajun Girl
Little Feat
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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”
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
When We Were Young
Blink-182
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Young men die in a war whose point is not apparent to them. The scene is an amphibious invasion, troops landing on the beach. One of the repeated reflections is that life prior to the war (rides in a blue sedan) had not yet amounted to much before many of the men died on the beach.
The war is not specified; World War II's D-Day nominally fits the bill, although the British forces (none of Yes are American) did not suffer terribly in those landings. There were many other smaller landings, though, throughout that war. The Falklands War was much more recent when the song was written although the British landings there were not terribly bloody, either. The war being described may be fictional.