"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.
Oh, all my boxes of collectable insects
I've displayed proud in my room
I
told my sister, to never let
My mother throw them out
They are my gift
To
her child
A reminder
Of the colour
Of the love
And the crime
That my
aimless direction
Was directed to strike
Flies and locusts, I dressed as
monarchs
Sit in thrones in a kingdom of boxes
I shovelled their guts out,
trampled their corpses
And dragged their bodies with oxen
And I left
The
court house
Under phantom guide
Of the crescent
Of the lord
And his
lions
That face toward, (to each other)
To corner the world
Gaps between,
the gaps I slipped through
Endless chasms and moats of kingdoms
I hid in the
bracken, I listened and acted
I tore the flesh from the bitch on the throne
I
was fucking bulimic to words of jesus
Fucking gospel from science
reluctants
I fell in the gaps, the gaps between and
No one ever told me
so
Social dissonance, beds of bracken
trials and judgements, science
reluctants
Social dissonance, beds of bracken
trials and judgements, science
reluctants
Forced dementia, walls of water
Girt by piss, the waves
hit
Ocean spoke to me
We'll sail together, you'll be deck, I'm here beneath
you
Human spoke to sea
Human spoke to sea
I'll be your teacher, if you send
a wave to drown us
Ocean spoke to me
So young, depressed and
inflammable
For as long as I've been living
I hated something above my
height
Fathers, Monarchs or Government, so I stole
From innocuous street
vendors
I felt like I deserved it all
I needed worth between my hands
To
feel what worth felt like, at all
As leave in chains so petrified
I've
never liked the sea
Reflecting grinds of unjust woes
As ocean froth so
foreign cleanses me
As I scratch away the face
Of monarchs on new
currency
I'd snap this worthless coin in half
And drag the ragged edge to
die
I woke from dreams about my life
My Mother's smile and Father's fight
A
lack of sympathy for my fellow man
In this boat I can finally
Grieve
Of my
fate
Of the life I'll waste
And the gaps though the system that I fell
I
love the world I live in
but I hate the country I've left
I'll change you
Australia
or I'll leave again with a rope around my neck
Oh I can be
brilliant
and oh I can change
Oh I'd love to burn the union jack
and never
grieve again
I've displayed proud in my room
I
told my sister, to never let
My mother throw them out
They are my gift
To
her child
A reminder
Of the colour
Of the love
And the crime
That my
aimless direction
Was directed to strike
Flies and locusts, I dressed as
monarchs
Sit in thrones in a kingdom of boxes
I shovelled their guts out,
trampled their corpses
And dragged their bodies with oxen
And I left
The
court house
Under phantom guide
Of the crescent
Of the lord
And his
lions
That face toward, (to each other)
To corner the world
Gaps between,
the gaps I slipped through
Endless chasms and moats of kingdoms
I hid in the
bracken, I listened and acted
I tore the flesh from the bitch on the throne
I
was fucking bulimic to words of jesus
Fucking gospel from science
reluctants
I fell in the gaps, the gaps between and
No one ever told me
so
Social dissonance, beds of bracken
trials and judgements, science
reluctants
Social dissonance, beds of bracken
trials and judgements, science
reluctants
Forced dementia, walls of water
Girt by piss, the waves
hit
Ocean spoke to me
We'll sail together, you'll be deck, I'm here beneath
you
Human spoke to sea
Human spoke to sea
I'll be your teacher, if you send
a wave to drown us
Ocean spoke to me
So young, depressed and
inflammable
For as long as I've been living
I hated something above my
height
Fathers, Monarchs or Government, so I stole
From innocuous street
vendors
I felt like I deserved it all
I needed worth between my hands
To
feel what worth felt like, at all
As leave in chains so petrified
I've
never liked the sea
Reflecting grinds of unjust woes
As ocean froth so
foreign cleanses me
As I scratch away the face
Of monarchs on new
currency
I'd snap this worthless coin in half
And drag the ragged edge to
die
I woke from dreams about my life
My Mother's smile and Father's fight
A
lack of sympathy for my fellow man
In this boat I can finally
Grieve
Of my
fate
Of the life I'll waste
And the gaps though the system that I fell
I
love the world I live in
but I hate the country I've left
I'll change you
Australia
or I'll leave again with a rope around my neck
Oh I can be
brilliant
and oh I can change
Oh I'd love to burn the union jack
and never
grieve again
Lyrics submitted by chris-jericho
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