"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.
Pay no heed to the fool in the field so far and gray... with spies like the serpents underfoot and rodents. Legs of wood... burlap, canvas, belt and hood and screams like freezing rusty nails and stitches running through his neck.
There's straw in his brain and his clothing is stained with mice, small newts, and the perfectly maimed! Don't look under his hood where he stood... I'm running from the rook in the wood!
Wind and leaves are rustling, turning, naked branches reaching, reaching... Taunted vigil, weeping on his stick... and now he's bleeding. He can hear the pest and when it's gnawing through! Rope and rowan cast him when the raven flew! He can be the darkness in the trees and feel the hollow and then frighten children far too young for this winter. He can live and breathe and die and talk again! Always in the glade where dark and chill begin!
Speak marauder! Speak marauder!
There's straw in his brain and his clothing is stained with mice, small newts, and the perfectly maimed! Don't look under his hood where he stood... I'm running from the rook in the wood!
He stalks the patch at night and scratch... and fly!
Stepping lightly, tries so hard to stain... underneath!
And then crawls the dampened earth like fog... tasting blades!
And then falling back until he sleeps... screaming softly!
Brained and stained and perfectly maimed... under his hood where he stood in the wood... brained and stained and perfectly maimed... under his hood where he stood in the wood...
There's straw in his brain and his clothing is stained with mice, small newts, and the perfectly maimed! Don't look under his hood where he stood... I'm running from the rook in the wood!
Wind and leaves are rustling, turning, naked branches reaching, reaching... Taunted vigil, weeping on his stick... and now he's bleeding. He can hear the pest and when it's gnawing through! Rope and rowan cast him when the raven flew! He can be the darkness in the trees and feel the hollow and then frighten children far too young for this winter. He can live and breathe and die and talk again! Always in the glade where dark and chill begin!
Speak marauder! Speak marauder!
There's straw in his brain and his clothing is stained with mice, small newts, and the perfectly maimed! Don't look under his hood where he stood... I'm running from the rook in the wood!
He stalks the patch at night and scratch... and fly!
Stepping lightly, tries so hard to stain... underneath!
And then crawls the dampened earth like fog... tasting blades!
And then falling back until he sleeps... screaming softly!
Brained and stained and perfectly maimed... under his hood where he stood in the wood... brained and stained and perfectly maimed... under his hood where he stood in the wood...
Lyrics submitted by ~Justine~
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