"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.
Let me put my arms
Around your head
Gee, it's hot, let's go to bed
Don't forget to turn on the light
Don't laugh babe, it'll be alright
Pour me out another phone
I'll ring and see
If your friends are home
Perhaps the strange ones in the dome
Can lend us a book we can read up alone
And try to get it on like once before
When people stared in Jagger's eyes
And scored
Like the video films we saw
[Chorus:]
His name was always Buddy
And he'd shrug and ask to stay
She'd sigh like Twig the Wonder Kid
And turn her face away
She's uncertain if she likes him
But she knows she really loves him
It's a crash course for the ravers
It's a Drive-in Saturday
Jung the foreman prayed at work
That neither hands nor limbs would burst
It's hard enough to keep formation
Amid this fall out saturation
Cursing at the Astronette 8
Who stands in steel
By his cabinet
He's crashing out with Sylvian
The Bureau Supply
For ageing men
With snorting head he gazes to the shore
Which once had raised a sea
That raged no more
Like the video films we saw
[Chorus]
It's a Drive-in Saturday [repeat]
Around your head
Gee, it's hot, let's go to bed
Don't forget to turn on the light
Don't laugh babe, it'll be alright
Pour me out another phone
I'll ring and see
If your friends are home
Perhaps the strange ones in the dome
Can lend us a book we can read up alone
And try to get it on like once before
When people stared in Jagger's eyes
And scored
Like the video films we saw
[Chorus:]
His name was always Buddy
And he'd shrug and ask to stay
She'd sigh like Twig the Wonder Kid
And turn her face away
She's uncertain if she likes him
But she knows she really loves him
It's a crash course for the ravers
It's a Drive-in Saturday
Jung the foreman prayed at work
That neither hands nor limbs would burst
It's hard enough to keep formation
Amid this fall out saturation
Cursing at the Astronette 8
Who stands in steel
By his cabinet
He's crashing out with Sylvian
The Bureau Supply
For ageing men
With snorting head he gazes to the shore
Which once had raised a sea
That raged no more
Like the video films we saw
[Chorus]
It's a Drive-in Saturday [repeat]
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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