"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.
Today I saw my father, standing in the graveyard, looking very somber, looking for his mom. When he finally found her, said that it was different, everything is different. Nothing's really changed.
My brother would remember sitting in the hallway, waiting for my father, both of us were scared. When the door knocked in, we took off for the stairway, looking for some cover, trying to get away.
a guide dog had to serve the roll that you would not let the mother of your children really ever play. The office was a dungeon, where you hid your fears of what would really happen, if no one ever came. And I wonder if you blamed yourself for when she left you for closing up the garage door, and turning on the car. Your father must have lost it; your sister couldn't help you. Dad if you were lonely, you had no where to turn. (Oh father, can't you see the pieces that have fallen on the ground, you and mom decided nothing could be saved inside this house.)
Everything has changed. Everything has changed. Everything has changed. Repeat.
Last night I had a dream, I was in the graveyard, looking at my father, buried in the ground. Swear that I could hear him, tell me he was sorry. And everything has changed.
My brother would remember sitting in the hallway, waiting for my father, both of us were scared. When the door knocked in, we took off for the stairway, looking for some cover, trying to get away.
a guide dog had to serve the roll that you would not let the mother of your children really ever play. The office was a dungeon, where you hid your fears of what would really happen, if no one ever came. And I wonder if you blamed yourself for when she left you for closing up the garage door, and turning on the car. Your father must have lost it; your sister couldn't help you. Dad if you were lonely, you had no where to turn. (Oh father, can't you see the pieces that have fallen on the ground, you and mom decided nothing could be saved inside this house.)
Everything has changed. Everything has changed. Everything has changed. Repeat.
Last night I had a dream, I was in the graveyard, looking at my father, buried in the ground. Swear that I could hear him, tell me he was sorry. And everything has changed.
Lyrics submitted by AndrewScottYoung
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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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Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
*side note - brings more meaning to the 'guide dog' lines. william fitzsimmons is the youngest child of blind parents..
Amazing song, too bad I couldn't figure out a couple of the lyrics...
Beautiful song by an incredible, underrated artist.
This is the story of someone who is watching his father fall apart after his grandmother killed herself. I don't know if this is a personal experience for the Artists, or if he is just wonderfully amazing at describing events like this... but the lyrics are amazing.
First, we find out that his father is in the graveyard, looking for his mom (the father's mother... not the speaker). Obviously he is in a graveyard looking for her because she has passed.
The next image we get is the speaker and his brother in the hallway being scared and waiting for his father. I think this is at the hospital. Perhaps the paramedics tried to save the grandmother. OR this is in the speaker's house and the father is learning of his mother's death. Obviously they were looking for cover and trying to get away from their father who was in pain... or perhaps angry.
The next part of the lyrics should read "a guide dog had to serve the roll that you would not let the mother of your children really ever play". I think this can be explained by the lines "i wonder if you blamed yourself for when she left you by closing up the garage door and turning on the car". My interpretation is that the father suffered some sort of vision loss from the effects of how his mother killed herself (carbon monoxide) and that the speaker is trying to illustrate how cold his father is by showing that he would not take help from others... only a guide dog, and that he kept his office as a dungeon.
The pieces falling to the ground are most likely those of the family- representing the falling apart of the family unit. (and hence "everything has changed"
Lastly, the speaker is dreaming about being in a graveyard once again. This time, he sees his father in the ground and he pictures an apology.
this song has so much emotion drilled into it. it makes you feel like you're choking, amazing
I really don't know what to say. I don't think a song has ever left me speechless before.
William has a degree in counseling and mental health therapy, he also endured his own parents divorce when he was young. His songs all revolve around personal subject matter and he articulates the emotions involved so well. I think that his personal experience and the years he spent working with the mentally ill have given him the insight and understanding it takes to write truly brilliant lyrics like these.
my gosh this song is beautiful.. oh and i just wanted to mention my interpretation of the lyrics =]
i don't think the grandmother in the story killed herself, i think she left his father when he was young, and years later, they're mourning her death. i thought about this from the line that says "i wonder if you blamed yourself for when she left you for closing the garage door and turning on the car" which kinda makes me think that she literally left and drove away.
"said that it was different, everything is different. nothing's really changed" shows that, even though her death has changed things, the writer's father hasn't really forgiven her after so long. this then fuels an epiphany that encourages the writer that he needs to forgive his own father.
I agree with is2rockandroll. What I gather from this song is that the father was perhaps a bit of an angry man. Well, not so much angry as simply troubled. He wouldn't let his wife help him (the guide dog reference), he buried himself in his work to keep his mind off of things (the office was a dungeon), and, at a younger age, he attempted suicide. For that, he was ostricized by his family: his mother left him, his dad lost it, and his sister tried to help him, but again, there are those walls the father seemingly has built up around him.
At the end, the speaker shows that he really wishes his father would just apologize, perhaps for not giving all of himself to his family and holding so much of himself back.
That's just my interpretation.
this song leaves me speechless everytime i hear it. william fitzsimmons writes the most beautiful songs.
and also, i think the line "When the door knocked in" is actually "When the door knob turned"