"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.
Why can't you finish what you've started?
Why can't you try and understand?
It doesn't make a bit of difference if you start what you can't finish
Every story needs an ending, after all.
I think I've known it for a long time
Suffice to say, it's been a while
You're too afraid to face the outcome
Quite likely, you're a failure
It's a shitty thing to say, but hey man - the clock is ticking
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
What fills the magic in the meantime?
I know it?s hard without a vice,
You need to find a new solution,
Adaptation or retribution,
If you truly do believe in something,
Somehow it all works out.
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
I'm completely bored
With every single word
And nothing ever works
And this juvenile search
Is systematically revealing to me
That I need a new approach
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
So sick of all the things I'm trying to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I...
Why can't you try and understand?
It doesn't make a bit of difference if you start what you can't finish
Every story needs an ending, after all.
I think I've known it for a long time
Suffice to say, it's been a while
You're too afraid to face the outcome
Quite likely, you're a failure
It's a shitty thing to say, but hey man - the clock is ticking
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
What fills the magic in the meantime?
I know it?s hard without a vice,
You need to find a new solution,
Adaptation or retribution,
If you truly do believe in something,
Somehow it all works out.
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
I'm completely bored
With every single word
And nothing ever works
And this juvenile search
Is systematically revealing to me
That I need a new approach
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I start
So sick of all the things I'm trying to say
Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day
I just waited for my world to fall apart
That's why I'll never finish anything I...
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
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.
Well, I think this song is about the songwriting process and feeling like you have nothing to say/can't say anything now that you're clean.
It also kinda reminds me of the Coen brothers movie "Barton Fink" with the whole "self-destructive artist" who drinks when he can't write. Sadly, I think I kind of idolize that.
I also think that he's coming to terms with the fact that without a vice (drugs or alcohol) the creative process is going to be harder because he's not just having words coming out of him that just flow and work.
Long story short: it's hard to write something because of ridiculous amounts of self-doubt/loathing.