"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.
Heart-carved tree trunk, Yankee bayonet
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas
That's where my true love lies
Look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bough high
But you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils
All a'chew on your bones so dry
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave?
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then, then
When I was a girl
How the hills of Oconee made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin
But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas?
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
No, I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with a child
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave?
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
The skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you
But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas
That's where my true love lies
Look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bough high
But you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils
All a'chew on your bones so dry
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave?
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then, then
When I was a girl
How the hills of Oconee made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin
But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas?
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
No, I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with a child
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave?
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
The skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you
But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind
Lyrics submitted by haruki, edited by tahare2000, wiscodisco
Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) Lyrics as written by Colin Meloy
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
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