"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.
You went into the kitchen cupboard
Got yourself another hour and gave
Half of it to me
We sat their looking at the faces
Of the strangers in the pages
Until we knew them mathematically
They were in our minds
Until forever
But we didn't mind
We didn't know better
So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking
While we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called our calculation
Perfect love
Didn't even know
That love was bigger
Didn't even know
Didn't even know that love was so, so
Hey hey hey hey
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
So we made the hard decision
And we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones
Our hearts were little stones
Pulled 'em out they weren't beating
And we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on our granite counter top
We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard til they sparked
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
Oo oo oo oo oo oo
Got yourself another hour and gave
Half of it to me
We sat their looking at the faces
Of the strangers in the pages
Until we knew them mathematically
They were in our minds
Until forever
But we didn't mind
We didn't know better
So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking
While we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called our calculation
Perfect love
Didn't even know
That love was bigger
Didn't even know
Didn't even know that love was so, so
Hey hey hey hey
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
So we made the hard decision
And we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones
Our hearts were little stones
Pulled 'em out they weren't beating
And we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on our granite counter top
We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard til they sparked
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
Oo oo oo oo oo oo
Lyrics submitted by incurable_humanist, edited by Sefumax
The Calculation Lyrics as written by Regina Spektor
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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i think this is a song about internet dating.
"So we made our own computer Out of macaroni pieces And it did our thinking while we lived our lives It counted up our feelings And divided them up even And it called that calculation perfect love."
this is almost how you put all of your information into an iternet dating site, it finds compatible people and calls it "perfect love". so this song basically says how two people are 'matched up', but possibly find out that they aren't really right for each other, but they keep trying to make it work.
"We sat there looking at the faces Of these stranges in the pages 'Til we knew 'em mathematically"
i think this basically is saying that someone was looking at the 'matches' until they knew every single detail about them 'mathimaticlly' idk, just some thoughts