"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.
What is this
You hope to find in me
My soul is here
Above my head and watching me
I'm sorry but I can't help you
Since the great escape
I can't even feel it
Since the great escape
I can't even see it
Since the great escape
It looks like you're a little late
What to do
The one you want is lost
My soul is gone
Far away from you and me
I'm sorry but I can't help you
Since the great escape
I can't even feel it
Since the great escape
I can't even see it
Since the great escape
It looks like you're a little late
You hope to find in me
My soul is here
Above my head and watching me
I'm sorry but I can't help you
Since the great escape
I can't even feel it
Since the great escape
I can't even see it
Since the great escape
It looks like you're a little late
What to do
The one you want is lost
My soul is gone
Far away from you and me
I'm sorry but I can't help you
Since the great escape
I can't even feel it
Since the great escape
I can't even see it
Since the great escape
It looks like you're a little late
Lyrics submitted by analysisfailed
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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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.
Mountain Song
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
When We Were Young
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Page
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
sorry but you are both very wrong. unlike everyone teaches us at school, it is not true that anything may be interpreted in a written piece of art. it is an insult to poetry.
about the song:
the lyrics depict the inability to reciprocate someones feelings due to (assumingly) her apparent condition of being without a soul, as a result to an elapsed event that must have driven it out.
"What is this You hope to find in me My soul is here Above my head and watching me"
the verse above introduces a dilemma in which the singer finds herself in. she is unable to see what her unknown adversary is hoping to find in her, since her soul appears to be close, but not within her. instead it is above her head, watching her; which means it is not in a bond with her physical being as you would conventionally think of, thus suggesting the idea of love, in which a soul mate is usually considered.
"I'm sorry but I can't help you Since the great escape I can't even feel it Since the great escape I can't even see it Since the great escape It looks like you're a little late"
the inability to requite love becomes tragic as she apologises and explains that she cannot feel nor see it since "the escape", which implies the even of segregation of body and soul. the repetition of the line "since the great escape" intensifies the tragedy of the event, by denoting that she lives in the past, moaning for her lost soul -and the ability to love in equal measure.
"What to do The one you want is lost My soul is gone Far away from you and me"
she is so very much aware of her condition and she feels helpless, asking what to do, ever since she lost what she wanted, driving her soul away.
the profound undertone of these lyrics suggest that she is even sorry for being unable to feel love at all anymore, considered the apology and the line "it looks like you're a little late". she is not necessarily uninterested, simply unable to love back. love is supposed to be the most powerful feeling one can have, making out the difference between happy and miserable. aware of this it becomes clear for her that she will not ever feel it again, the feeling that is supposed to make you happy. the feeling she wished to feel again, and the feeling she will now always carry with her as the empty shell without a soul.