"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.
This place is all too familiar!
So sudden, I find myself returning to the origin,
the event that started it all.
that started it all!
All I ever asked for was one more day. Is this it? Is this what I'm after?
…Back to the beginning, where I was sinking in the sea.
Where I was fighting to stay awake,
fighting the urge to succumb to the waves.
Is this what it means to be forgiven:
Undeserved blessings, and a second chance
that makes time shake,
and that makes lives change,
when it's only been a second in an everlasting day?
No, this can't be!
Everything's repeating!
Repeating as it already was,
written in history's page,
and its ink has never been drawn back into its pen.
I never wanted what I couldn't pay back, can't pay back.
I never wanted what I couldn't pay back, can't pay back.
Can't pay back!
Is this what it means to be forgiven:
Undeserved blessings, and a second chance
that makes time shake,
and that makes lives change,
when it's only been a second in an everlasting day?
Let me sink to the bottom,
where I belonged all along.
Let me sleep beneath.
So sudden, I find myself returning to the origin,
the event that started it all.
that started it all!
All I ever asked for was one more day. Is this it? Is this what I'm after?
…Back to the beginning, where I was sinking in the sea.
Where I was fighting to stay awake,
fighting the urge to succumb to the waves.
Is this what it means to be forgiven:
Undeserved blessings, and a second chance
that makes time shake,
and that makes lives change,
when it's only been a second in an everlasting day?
No, this can't be!
Everything's repeating!
Repeating as it already was,
written in history's page,
and its ink has never been drawn back into its pen.
I never wanted what I couldn't pay back, can't pay back.
I never wanted what I couldn't pay back, can't pay back.
Can't pay back!
Is this what it means to be forgiven:
Undeserved blessings, and a second chance
that makes time shake,
and that makes lives change,
when it's only been a second in an everlasting day?
Let me sink to the bottom,
where I belonged all along.
Let me sleep beneath.
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Fast Car
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,