"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.
Guard my soul if you can feel it
And hold me close while I'm still breathing
Don't hide away
Gaze upon the stars at midnight
The moonbeam's shine is mine and no one's
To hide away
Hide hide away
Powered on by lonely nights and the only gods I can see
The wars raging upon this world and the moon and stars within me
I feel them calling me but I cannot go
I want to stay awake in the arms of my dreams
If all alone
Then all alone
Bear to me this frail life's sorrow
Well, I've had mine, none was borrowed
You'll never know
Scaling walls of stone and lumber
Above the yields of life's true wonders
I watched you climb
And hide
Hide away
Powered on by lonely pulse but the only beat you can feel
A broken heart in your armored chest pounding down its enemy's heels
I have felt you stalking me but I will not turn
I stab you to the death with the arms of my own
Mind and soul
Mind and soul
Songs of love your lips have swallowed
With heavy tears that knew no pardons
Love fell away
Left to fend your verse's honor
With poet's pen to tend no others
Takes will from jade
Will
Will from jade
Powered on by the lonely wounds of your childhood insanities
The caution steels you against the ghost of its aging memories
I have felt them haunting me
But where could they go
If I walk away with dreams in the arms of my own
Stronger hold
Stronger hold
And hold me close while I'm still breathing
Don't hide away
Gaze upon the stars at midnight
The moonbeam's shine is mine and no one's
To hide away
Hide hide away
Powered on by lonely nights and the only gods I can see
The wars raging upon this world and the moon and stars within me
I feel them calling me but I cannot go
I want to stay awake in the arms of my dreams
If all alone
Then all alone
Bear to me this frail life's sorrow
Well, I've had mine, none was borrowed
You'll never know
Scaling walls of stone and lumber
Above the yields of life's true wonders
I watched you climb
And hide
Hide away
Powered on by lonely pulse but the only beat you can feel
A broken heart in your armored chest pounding down its enemy's heels
I have felt you stalking me but I will not turn
I stab you to the death with the arms of my own
Mind and soul
Mind and soul
Songs of love your lips have swallowed
With heavy tears that knew no pardons
Love fell away
Left to fend your verse's honor
With poet's pen to tend no others
Takes will from jade
Will
Will from jade
Powered on by the lonely wounds of your childhood insanities
The caution steels you against the ghost of its aging memories
I have felt them haunting me
But where could they go
If I walk away with dreams in the arms of my own
Stronger hold
Stronger hold
Lyrics submitted by reiko7176
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Fast Car
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