"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.
It was early September in Lincoln, Nebraska
Two friends were conversing at dusk on a porch
One was all wrapped up in blankets and pillows
The other an old overcoat
Affection was easy to witness between them
The physical closeness, the tender exchange
The one in the coat gently stroking the other
Who struggled but managed to talk just the same
He said "Do you remember the day we met, Michael
I heard you were coming and I called many times
I didn't want someone like you to move in here
I wasn't used to your kind
But instead of returning my ignorant curses
You just kept on answering the phone
And you knocked on my door with a bucket of chicken
The first time you came to my home."
The two men were laughing now, shaking their heads
With a sense of the passage about to take place
"Larry, if someone had said we'd be friends
I'd have called them insane to their face
But you can't always tell what's inside of an apple
And you can't always trust what you see."
And Michael continued to wonder out loud
After Larry had drifted to sleep
How a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Michael helped Larry back into the house
And then Michael's wife Julie helped Larry to bed
A life-long diabetic confined to a wheelchair
He couldn't do much for himself any more
So they'd taken him in to unravel the pain
How his father made fun of him, planting the seed
And the root of the anger that grew so completely
Once strangled his heart like a weed
But a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Larry's last breath in his bedroom at Michael's
Came later that night with his friend at his side
"Thank you" was all he could whisper "for changing
A dragon to a butterfly"
For Larry was once a White Knight, a Grand Dragon
With robes and with torches, with scorn and with hate
And Michael the Rabbi who'd just moved to Lincoln
With two open arms and with faith
That a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Two friends were conversing at dusk on a porch
One was all wrapped up in blankets and pillows
The other an old overcoat
Affection was easy to witness between them
The physical closeness, the tender exchange
The one in the coat gently stroking the other
Who struggled but managed to talk just the same
He said "Do you remember the day we met, Michael
I heard you were coming and I called many times
I didn't want someone like you to move in here
I wasn't used to your kind
But instead of returning my ignorant curses
You just kept on answering the phone
And you knocked on my door with a bucket of chicken
The first time you came to my home."
The two men were laughing now, shaking their heads
With a sense of the passage about to take place
"Larry, if someone had said we'd be friends
I'd have called them insane to their face
But you can't always tell what's inside of an apple
And you can't always trust what you see."
And Michael continued to wonder out loud
After Larry had drifted to sleep
How a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Michael helped Larry back into the house
And then Michael's wife Julie helped Larry to bed
A life-long diabetic confined to a wheelchair
He couldn't do much for himself any more
So they'd taken him in to unravel the pain
How his father made fun of him, planting the seed
And the root of the anger that grew so completely
Once strangled his heart like a weed
But a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Larry's last breath in his bedroom at Michael's
Came later that night with his friend at his side
"Thank you" was all he could whisper "for changing
A dragon to a butterfly"
For Larry was once a White Knight, a Grand Dragon
With robes and with torches, with scorn and with hate
And Michael the Rabbi who'd just moved to Lincoln
With two open arms and with faith
That a man can move mountains, a world can be turned
And the greatest of distances easily spanned
When the strength that's invested in making a fist
Is transformed into shaking a hand
Lyrics submitted by bananahero
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