"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.
I will stand and watch the world burn
For I am the tyrant
Sat upon my thrown of tyranny
Telling this story
As the world unfolds
Nothing can stop me now
I have transcended
To a state of mind
Not even the wise can conjure
With my hands I bear down
The rules of a new order
Not written on stone
Carved on the bodies of the misguided
2 thousand years
Of a prophecy we will never see
But only the blood of those
Who died for it
I arise
I conquer
I will stand and watch the world burn
monuments will crumble at the sight of my hammer
Your blinding ignorance will be no more
See your faith basks in the shadows
Renounce your sins
Of not believing in yourself
the world meets its end as
I write the ways of anew
To spread my voice through
You
A shallow being
hypocritical to the cross
Where one mans death
Spawned only lies
hear the voice of reason
And know we bear the truth
we are the Harbinger
of a future in flames
we are the origin
of the spark that sets the world ablaze
For I am the tyrant
Sat upon my thrown of tyranny
Telling this story
As the world unfolds
Nothing can stop me now
I have transcended
To a state of mind
Not even the wise can conjure
With my hands I bear down
The rules of a new order
Not written on stone
Carved on the bodies of the misguided
2 thousand years
Of a prophecy we will never see
But only the blood of those
Who died for it
I arise
I conquer
I will stand and watch the world burn
monuments will crumble at the sight of my hammer
Your blinding ignorance will be no more
See your faith basks in the shadows
Renounce your sins
Of not believing in yourself
the world meets its end as
I write the ways of anew
To spread my voice through
You
A shallow being
hypocritical to the cross
Where one mans death
Spawned only lies
hear the voice of reason
And know we bear the truth
we are the Harbinger
of a future in flames
we are the origin
of the spark that sets the world ablaze
Lyrics submitted by HisMessage
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Fast Car
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Great version of a great song,
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Page
Ed Sheeran
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