"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.
Strange raves on a Detroit bridge
I was reaching for the rhythm but it's out of reach
She was talking to the Buick
She was cutting the tequila with bleach
And she said to me
There's no such thing as an Egyptian cowboy
Your pretty haircut can't help you now, boy
There's nothing we can do for you unless you're willing to kill
Hey, come on and kill.
I think this city could have used a woman's touch
As I'm wading through the toxic waste and such
Cuz everybody here said I won't amount to much
Everybody here said I won't amount to much
When I go from point A to point B I want thrills and
chills and blood to spill
But there's never any people on the people mover -
Public transit equivalent of Herbert Hoover
You're never gonna get anywhere because you're standing still
standing still!
These songs don't write themselves
I've got a music workshop run by elves
Making dozens of records by the twelves
Stocking our product on Ikea shelves
Let me state
My state of mind, mind, mind
is just fine.
Baby, that's the sound of the years going by
You can find me on the same bar stool just waiting to die.
Three cheers to me, here's mud in your eye.
I said, "Cheers to me, here's mud in your eye"
She came to close out my tab, so I was troubled and she took a stab
and she said to me
There's no such thing as an electric tuba
The Detroit River's not a good place to scuba
The only reason you're here today is cuz we need you to kill
Yeah, kill!
My songs are tasty pies,
fresh oven-baked and filled with lies
Gobbled up by the dozen by Neanderthal guys
Inhaling the aroma of Canadian lies
Oh my, why you got quite a lot of problems, don't you?
Shake that tambourine!
Shake that shaker machine!
Shake it, low.
Shake it, high.
Shake it.
Shake it.
I was reaching for the rhythm but it's out of reach
She was talking to the Buick
She was cutting the tequila with bleach
And she said to me
There's no such thing as an Egyptian cowboy
Your pretty haircut can't help you now, boy
There's nothing we can do for you unless you're willing to kill
Hey, come on and kill.
I think this city could have used a woman's touch
As I'm wading through the toxic waste and such
Cuz everybody here said I won't amount to much
Everybody here said I won't amount to much
When I go from point A to point B I want thrills and
chills and blood to spill
But there's never any people on the people mover -
Public transit equivalent of Herbert Hoover
You're never gonna get anywhere because you're standing still
standing still!
These songs don't write themselves
I've got a music workshop run by elves
Making dozens of records by the twelves
Stocking our product on Ikea shelves
Let me state
My state of mind, mind, mind
is just fine.
Baby, that's the sound of the years going by
You can find me on the same bar stool just waiting to die.
Three cheers to me, here's mud in your eye.
I said, "Cheers to me, here's mud in your eye"
She came to close out my tab, so I was troubled and she took a stab
and she said to me
There's no such thing as an electric tuba
The Detroit River's not a good place to scuba
The only reason you're here today is cuz we need you to kill
Yeah, kill!
My songs are tasty pies,
fresh oven-baked and filled with lies
Gobbled up by the dozen by Neanderthal guys
Inhaling the aroma of Canadian lies
Oh my, why you got quite a lot of problems, don't you?
Shake that tambourine!
Shake that shaker machine!
Shake it, low.
Shake it, high.
Shake it.
Shake it.
Lyrics submitted by TheDirge, edited by Dubious Merit
Egyptian Cowboy Lyrics as written by
Lyrics © SWISS CHOCOLATE MUSIC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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I got a weird vibe of Queensryche and Talking Heads from this song...at the same time. :)
Before I had read the lyrics, I had caught the couple of lyrics referencing Detroit (The Detroit river, The People Mover -- which is the most useless piece of public transportation in the form of a tiny elevated tram). When listening to this song in the car, I would laugh at those two lyrics.
However, looking at the entire song. I get the feeling it's about doing drugs during a musical festival (in Detroit). I've lived in the Detroit area for a majority of my life and going to the Downtown area can be a surreal experience. One wrong turn and you'll go from a place where business men walk the sidewalks, to a seedy underbelly where homeless people speak in an incoherent bastard form of English.
Take the first verse of the song. Raves on Detroit bridges... that sounds like something that could have actually happened about 5-10 years ago. Cutting Tequila with bleach... if there's a bar that would actually get away with this, it would be in Detroit.
With the third verse, it sounds like Dick Valentine is wandering through Detroit (post-concert/festival), and is starting to see some really weird shit. Maybe he's bar hopping, maybe he's getting invited to sketchy after parties. Who knows, but I laugh to myself imagining what sort of Dali-esque situations Dick Valentine may have thrown himself on occasion as a native to Detroit.
The scattered nature of this song reminds me of the up's and down's of a wild night before, during, and after going to a show or music festival. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, and maybe I'm totally off from Dick's original meaning (if any), but my interpretation has me laughing at the imagery it elicits.