"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 all falling down and a long way from cheap
So tell me why did we live where we lived?
Above the old fish shop where they served up slop
And all the alley cats talked in their sleep
I spent a year there with B
After I quit the Mitsubishi,
Dragged my mattress up some stairs by the sea
Then watched the old van rust in the gusts of the coast
Ending its knightly expeditions for beer
B went psychotic in the navy and he wouldn't mend
Something about a sunk junk and speed
Well he couldn't shake the illness or endure the cure
And there was no point switching treatments in the
Timor Sea
I have never known someone who needed to talk so much
Or even fool himself disguising a guess
I just steered his bullshit through the next diversion
Never bothering with reality checks
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
B took his refuge in the open where it stings
You think you'd seen him but he's gone in a blink
Once those Stilnox hit their target don't trust nothing,
No one
And don't go believing anything that you think
He'd say, "I'm half way through
But I don't know what I'm doing
I ain't feeling much of nothing at all
But it's my first time too, if that's a valid excuse
I'm going to wait here for the engines to stall
I've seen the tracks of some giant, the smoke of some fire
Fuse like hot sands in a bottleneck
Does all of beauty lie in being dead and gone
Or is all history made of chickens and their unhatched eggs
I've seen the specter of a frigate on a dry rock face
A stone axe held together with an old bootlace
Anything betraying the drift of dead headway
You can shake it but it won't let go
All that so men can live like girls to keep their might pert
Digging music made by millionaires for car adverts
Save the whales, invade Iraq and have a hamburger
I can't distinguish between the nightmare and the joke
I was in Tokyo once without any cash
Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas
I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi
Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji"
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
But when his pension got suspended,
Well that spelled the end
And I joined his life of leisure in flight
It's too hard to row a boat using a periscope
Sometimes you gotta do wrong to do right
He got in trouble years back, I haven't see him since
In a men's room in a night club in Madrid
He sold some dexedrine or something to a plain clothes D
Then raised a stink so bad they ended up deporting him
Then last I heard he was as free as a bird or into Scientology
Or into Heaven's Gate or Sharon Tate
Or in the Legionnaires
Or gone to Georgia with the Mujahideen
And someone else was walking eggshells in his birdcage
Someone else shared his unending lease on hamstrung rage
He was someone else's problem, and that made me glad
They can indulge him 'till he's ironclad
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
I wound up working in a hospital
Renting TV's to the bored and the blind
Seems the DSS got sick of my BS
And had my unemployment privatised
They made a date with me, some agency
And I went down there like a fool in love
They made a few phone calls, found a real cure-all
Like I wasn't miserable enough
I was working night shift when he got there
The first time I'd seen a coma on the ward
The sister said he won't be needing TV now
Probably won't be needing nothing at all
He was in Tokyo for once until he stabilised
They flew him back here and the story unfolded
They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest
Where those harrakiri weirdos go
He died a little later, and was wheeled away
I'd blame his morbid fascination for it all
And his doubtless, groundless faith
In his outdoorsmanship
He didn't kill himself, he didn't have the balls
Hope dies last in a hospital
But has a habit of doing it next to you
While you shit kick around with your eyes to the ground
Like a bowerbird appropriating anything
The colour blue.
So tell me why did we live where we lived?
Above the old fish shop where they served up slop
And all the alley cats talked in their sleep
I spent a year there with B
After I quit the Mitsubishi,
Dragged my mattress up some stairs by the sea
Then watched the old van rust in the gusts of the coast
Ending its knightly expeditions for beer
B went psychotic in the navy and he wouldn't mend
Something about a sunk junk and speed
Well he couldn't shake the illness or endure the cure
And there was no point switching treatments in the
Timor Sea
I have never known someone who needed to talk so much
Or even fool himself disguising a guess
I just steered his bullshit through the next diversion
Never bothering with reality checks
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
B took his refuge in the open where it stings
You think you'd seen him but he's gone in a blink
Once those Stilnox hit their target don't trust nothing,
No one
And don't go believing anything that you think
He'd say, "I'm half way through
But I don't know what I'm doing
I ain't feeling much of nothing at all
But it's my first time too, if that's a valid excuse
I'm going to wait here for the engines to stall
I've seen the tracks of some giant, the smoke of some fire
Fuse like hot sands in a bottleneck
Does all of beauty lie in being dead and gone
Or is all history made of chickens and their unhatched eggs
I've seen the specter of a frigate on a dry rock face
A stone axe held together with an old bootlace
Anything betraying the drift of dead headway
You can shake it but it won't let go
All that so men can live like girls to keep their might pert
Digging music made by millionaires for car adverts
Save the whales, invade Iraq and have a hamburger
I can't distinguish between the nightmare and the joke
I was in Tokyo once without any cash
Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas
I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi
Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji"
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
But when his pension got suspended,
Well that spelled the end
And I joined his life of leisure in flight
It's too hard to row a boat using a periscope
Sometimes you gotta do wrong to do right
He got in trouble years back, I haven't see him since
In a men's room in a night club in Madrid
He sold some dexedrine or something to a plain clothes D
Then raised a stink so bad they ended up deporting him
Then last I heard he was as free as a bird or into Scientology
Or into Heaven's Gate or Sharon Tate
Or in the Legionnaires
Or gone to Georgia with the Mujahideen
And someone else was walking eggshells in his birdcage
Someone else shared his unending lease on hamstrung rage
He was someone else's problem, and that made me glad
They can indulge him 'till he's ironclad
Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?
I wound up working in a hospital
Renting TV's to the bored and the blind
Seems the DSS got sick of my BS
And had my unemployment privatised
They made a date with me, some agency
And I went down there like a fool in love
They made a few phone calls, found a real cure-all
Like I wasn't miserable enough
I was working night shift when he got there
The first time I'd seen a coma on the ward
The sister said he won't be needing TV now
Probably won't be needing nothing at all
He was in Tokyo for once until he stabilised
They flew him back here and the story unfolded
They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest
Where those harrakiri weirdos go
He died a little later, and was wheeled away
I'd blame his morbid fascination for it all
And his doubtless, groundless faith
In his outdoorsmanship
He didn't kill himself, he didn't have the balls
Hope dies last in a hospital
But has a habit of doing it next to you
While you shit kick around with your eyes to the ground
Like a bowerbird appropriating anything
The colour blue.
Lyrics submitted by david_lpfan
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
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,
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Just A Little Lovin'
Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
I don't think it's necessarily about sex. It's about wanting to start the day with some love and affection. Maybe a warm cuddle. I'm not alone in interpreting it that way! For example:
"'Just a Little Lovin’ is a timeless country song originally recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1954. The song, written by Eddie Miller and Jimmy Campbell, explores the delicate nuances of love and showcases Arnold’s emotive vocals. It delves into the universal theme of love and how even the smallest gesture of affection can have a profound impact on our lives." https://oldtimemusic.com/the-meaning-behind-the-song-just-a-little-lovin-by-eddy-arnold/
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
It's about a friend who has a fascination with or just does things things that make him unhappy or depressed - hence the analogy of a bowerbird that collects things that are the colour blue.
The singer doesn't point out what he thinks is wrong with his friend and his direction in life and often goes along with him, for example in the lines "I just steered his bullshit through the next diversion", "And I joined his life of leisure in flight It's too hard to row a boat using a periscope" and "He was someone else's problem and that made me glad".
Eventually his friend dies after camping in Aokigahara and the singer comes across him whilst working in a hospital. It's as if his friend didn't want to die but the singer should have seen it coming seeing as his morbid fascination.