"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.
I was crawling around in my head in the haze of a trance
Rico said, "I'ma turn you onto a sound, cool out your head
This is the sound from Camden town"
And then I heard it like a shot from my skull to my brain
I felt my fingertips tingle and it started to rain
When the walls of my bedroom were tremblin' around me
This ramshackle voice over attack of a blues beat
Tellin' me "He's only looking for fun"
And this was the sound of the very last gang in town
As heard by my wild young heart like directions on a cold dark night
Sayin' "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I heard it in his chain gang soul
How it wasn't just the same sad song
Sayin' "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I carried these songs like a comfort wherever I'd go
And they was there when my summers was high
And there when she left me alone
Saying, "the soul is hard to find"
And I never got to tell him so I just wrote it down
I wrapped a couple chords around it and I let it come out
When the walls of my bedroom trembled around me
This ramshackle voice over attack of a blues beat
And a girl, on the excitement gang
And this was the sound of the very last gang in town
As heard by my wild young heart like directions on a cold dark night
Sayin', "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I heard it in his chain gang soul
How it wasn't just the same sad song
Sayin', "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
That was the sound
I hear the sound
Do you hear the sound?
I hear the sound
Of the very last gang in town
Rico said, "I'ma turn you onto a sound, cool out your head
This is the sound from Camden town"
And then I heard it like a shot from my skull to my brain
I felt my fingertips tingle and it started to rain
When the walls of my bedroom were tremblin' around me
This ramshackle voice over attack of a blues beat
Tellin' me "He's only looking for fun"
And this was the sound of the very last gang in town
As heard by my wild young heart like directions on a cold dark night
Sayin' "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I heard it in his chain gang soul
How it wasn't just the same sad song
Sayin' "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I carried these songs like a comfort wherever I'd go
And they was there when my summers was high
And there when she left me alone
Saying, "the soul is hard to find"
And I never got to tell him so I just wrote it down
I wrapped a couple chords around it and I let it come out
When the walls of my bedroom trembled around me
This ramshackle voice over attack of a blues beat
And a girl, on the excitement gang
And this was the sound of the very last gang in town
As heard by my wild young heart like directions on a cold dark night
Sayin', "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
And I heard it in his chain gang soul
How it wasn't just the same sad song
Sayin', "Let it out, let it out, let it out
You're doin' all right"
That was the sound
I hear the sound
Do you hear the sound?
I hear the sound
Of the very last gang in town
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
astatusquoexile is right, at one point Joe called himself woody. Also the line "he's only looking for fun" is from the clash song '(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais". The chain gang is a reference from Joe's song "Long Shadow". Last Gang in Town is also the title of a clash song.
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