"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.
Now they're calling for the second time today
Asking for to borrow those two tapes again
Is it really worth the struggle of covering up?
On the brink and learning how to live with it
Got experience from method toting deep within
And they say it's so inflammable
Am I caught in a trap with all the remains of a letdown?
All the remains of a letdown
Speak out if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone died at a screening downtown of a tape
Now they're running round drawing circles and
Living up to everything you think of them
Such a senseless slender guy and his greater half
On a mission for the local government
Looking for a tape that's gonna pay the rent
And they say it's so inflammable
The cats will whine the dogs will itch
So bury the beat and forget them
Raise the remains of a letdown
Speak out if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone cried at a screening
Downtown of a tape
Of a tape
OK
Now it's coming out the story we all knew
In equal parts all that you did and that you didn't do
Was it really worth the struggle of covering up?
Leave it playing till it spells the ending back
Is this what happens if you suffer like a cardiac?
Will you beg to be excused for always dumbing down
Or wrenching up
Now all that's left is a letdown
The view in reverse of a letdown
Speak up if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone died at a screening
Downtown of a tape, of a tape
Asking for to borrow those two tapes again
Is it really worth the struggle of covering up?
On the brink and learning how to live with it
Got experience from method toting deep within
And they say it's so inflammable
Am I caught in a trap with all the remains of a letdown?
All the remains of a letdown
Speak out if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone died at a screening downtown of a tape
Now they're running round drawing circles and
Living up to everything you think of them
Such a senseless slender guy and his greater half
On a mission for the local government
Looking for a tape that's gonna pay the rent
And they say it's so inflammable
The cats will whine the dogs will itch
So bury the beat and forget them
Raise the remains of a letdown
Speak out if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone cried at a screening
Downtown of a tape
Of a tape
OK
Now it's coming out the story we all knew
In equal parts all that you did and that you didn't do
Was it really worth the struggle of covering up?
Leave it playing till it spells the ending back
Is this what happens if you suffer like a cardiac?
Will you beg to be excused for always dumbing down
Or wrenching up
Now all that's left is a letdown
The view in reverse of a letdown
Speak up if you got it
Watch out if you run
Since I heard someone died at a screening
Downtown of a tape, of a tape
Lyrics submitted by strykerchick
The Tape Lyrics as written by Sondre Lerche Vaular
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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"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"
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"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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this song is fantasitc, i put it on repeat and dance around a la molly ringwald
it sounds like it's about some confidential tape, honestly though i have no clue, i don't really care, it's too fantastic to worry about decoding
I saw him last night in concert and explained this song was an attempt at black mailing someone and stabbing them in the back, the funny part is the person didn't even realize it.
Haha, I agree. Fantastic song, I used to put this on repeat all the time.