"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'm watching the green give into gold
As summer becomes October's cold
Gravity begs
For one final kiss
She drops it to him, as she gives in
Traces of light, linger around
As laces of white fall to the ground
The softest of sounds for the heaviest things
And the pain that it brings
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Don't remember the day, she's started to fade
The ground felt a chill as she gave it away
A whisper - a sigh, for the time that she passed
But this winter won't last
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Oh to be with summer again
The days were warm and we wore them like skin
Now I feel the effects of October again
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Oh to be with summer again
I'm watching the green give into gold
As summer becomes October's cold
As summer becomes October's cold
Gravity begs
For one final kiss
She drops it to him, as she gives in
Traces of light, linger around
As laces of white fall to the ground
The softest of sounds for the heaviest things
And the pain that it brings
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Don't remember the day, she's started to fade
The ground felt a chill as she gave it away
A whisper - a sigh, for the time that she passed
But this winter won't last
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Oh to be with summer again
The days were warm and we wore them like skin
Now I feel the effects of October again
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to become another again
I remember when
Oh to be with summer again
I'm watching the green give into gold
As summer becomes October's cold
Lyrics submitted by blisse
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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”
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.
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
What I read into this song is the following:
It is a lament of a guy who is watching a girl give into a relationship with another man which includes a sexual component. The song writer uses an extended metaphor in which he relates her to the seasons.
The green giving into gold, summer into October, leaves falling and "kissing" the ground are all part of the extended metaphor comparing the estrangement in their relationship and her temptation to the physical relationship to the physical seasons.
He is lamenting her change and estrangement so much, it feels like she becomes another person as she gives into this physical relationship. He longs to be with "summer" again, meaning she becomes another person who is colder, or colder towards him.
This extended metaphor could have come about because they are childhood friends and she (or both) go off to college in the autumn and it's like she becomes a different person. But in the summer she is back to the person he knows.
For me, and knowing this song is written by a christian group, I can see our relationship with Christ pictured in the song and our spiritual infidelity with him as we draw farther away and get entangled by the things of the world. He is longing for us to come back to him and escape those things which ultimately do not fill us or meet our hearts true needs (the cold winter).
Throughout the song there is a confidence in the return of summer ("this winter won't last"), the return of faithfulness, and I can only suspect that this is Christian confidence in the restorative power of Jesus, not just a seasonal cycle.