"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 took the freeway out of town
We found a place to settle down
We bought a driveway and a swingset and a dog
You got your very own bathroom
I got my very own workshop in the basement
We sit around staring at the wall-to-wall
Take field trips to our favorite mall
Waiting for the day when all the kids grow up and leave us here
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
We hung a flag above the door
Checked out the gourmet grocery store
I bought a mower I can ride around the yard
But we haven’t got real friends
And now even the fake ones have stopped calling
Maybe if you forget to hide the keys
I’ll take a ride to Applebee’s
I’ll come home drunk on daiquiris and throw up on the neighbor’s lawn
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
I like the Starbucks here that’s better than the other one
Because the other one’s not as good
They really need to put a light there cause it’s hard to turn
It’s hard to make a left turn
And when it’s time to go to bed
I’m still awake inside my head
I’m floating up above the house and looking down
I guess I gotta go back there
I guess there never was any other answer
And as the freeway hums the cars go by
The headlights roll across the sky
Many miles away but I can see them speeding through the dark
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
We found a place to settle down
We bought a driveway and a swingset and a dog
You got your very own bathroom
I got my very own workshop in the basement
We sit around staring at the wall-to-wall
Take field trips to our favorite mall
Waiting for the day when all the kids grow up and leave us here
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
We hung a flag above the door
Checked out the gourmet grocery store
I bought a mower I can ride around the yard
But we haven’t got real friends
And now even the fake ones have stopped calling
Maybe if you forget to hide the keys
I’ll take a ride to Applebee’s
I’ll come home drunk on daiquiris and throw up on the neighbor’s lawn
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
I like the Starbucks here that’s better than the other one
Because the other one’s not as good
They really need to put a light there cause it’s hard to turn
It’s hard to make a left turn
And when it’s time to go to bed
I’m still awake inside my head
I’m floating up above the house and looking down
I guess I gotta go back there
I guess there never was any other answer
And as the freeway hums the cars go by
The headlights roll across the sky
Many miles away but I can see them speeding through the dark
If you need me
I’ll be downstairs
With the shop vac
You can call but I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
But you’ll be OK
Cause you’ll be upstairs
With the TV
You can cry and I probably won’t hear you
Because it’s loud with the shop vac on
Lyrics submitted by emerlee
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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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"
Mountain Song
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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
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
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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.
This is a good song about the hell that is modern life - where you live a shell of an existence in suburbia, doing the same damn thing every day.