"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.
All the trees stood like skeletons
Silhouettes of spilled ink
And the snows fell in sheets and got wrapped around our feet
We built the fire evermore with winter beating at the door
Brother's eyes were getting heavier
His bony hands cold and white
And I could hear his ragged breathing like the wind along a knife
There beside him through the night, in the hum of candlelight
I no longer felt the time
Brother woke just after midnight
And he didn't make a sound
And as he climbed from out of bed with severed rings around his head
His feet didn't touch the ground
I could feel it then
A tiny miracle
So I followed him
Into the woods
Crossed beneath the trees
But only I left my prints in tow
He was afloat
Found a lonely tree
And tied himself within its limbs
And he said to me these words
Don't you fear for me
I am where I'm supposed to be
And when I woke he was gone
And I was wrapped in blankets on the lawn
The sky was blue and my skin matched the hue
And I could hear mother crying in your room
From here on out I wear this face for both of us
Silhouettes of spilled ink
And the snows fell in sheets and got wrapped around our feet
We built the fire evermore with winter beating at the door
Brother's eyes were getting heavier
His bony hands cold and white
And I could hear his ragged breathing like the wind along a knife
There beside him through the night, in the hum of candlelight
I no longer felt the time
Brother woke just after midnight
And he didn't make a sound
And as he climbed from out of bed with severed rings around his head
His feet didn't touch the ground
I could feel it then
A tiny miracle
So I followed him
Into the woods
Crossed beneath the trees
But only I left my prints in tow
He was afloat
Found a lonely tree
And tied himself within its limbs
And he said to me these words
Don't you fear for me
I am where I'm supposed to be
And when I woke he was gone
And I was wrapped in blankets on the lawn
The sky was blue and my skin matched the hue
And I could hear mother crying in your room
From here on out I wear this face for both of us
Lyrics submitted by Cyberghost
Severus and Stone Lyrics as written by Benjamin Cooper
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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It's a straightforward story about a pair of twins
The first verse sets the scene, it's a house in a forest of leafless trees in the depths of winter. They're (the family) is watching the narrator's twin coughing and rattling on his deathbed. The narrator loses track of time and falls asleep.
When the brother wakes up and walks above the ground he's a ghost or spirit. The halo (although why it is broken I don't know). The ghost of the brother leads the narrator out into the forest in a snowstorm before rising up into a tree's branches.
The key lines of the song are the "Don't you fear for me, I am where I'm supposed to be", which is a reassurance from the ghost of the brother that everything will be ok. I tear up when I hear this part.
The last verse is the narrator waking up out in the snow in the morning. His mother is crying over the brother's corpse, and the narrator says that he will 'wear this face' (as a twin) for both of them from now on.
I believe the halo is severed because he's half of them and dying without his twin leaves him incomplete.
This song is amazing.
I heard a rumor that this song is about Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. Even though I am an avid Harry Potter fan, I am having a hard time connecting this song to Snape. I'm not sure if it is even about him, but the title definitely does fit with the series, even if the lyrics don't exactly match.
@sarahw7 this song has nothing to do with the Harry Potter series. The Family Tree trilogy deals exclusively with the Northcotes, a fictional family that Ben Cooper created and sings about.