"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.
Bring out your weeping weeds
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Gather the screws and spades
Oil up your mud-brown slicker
Gather the screws and spades
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
Who'll set his legs uncrooked?
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
For burying Davy
For burying Davy
Mother wept no tears
His brother grew unruly
Mother wept no tears
At burying Davy
At burying Davy
Bring out your weeping weeds
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Gather the screws and spades
Oil up your mud-brown slicker
Gather the screws and spades
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
Who'll set his legs uncrooked?
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
For burying Davy
For burying Davy
Mother wept no tears
His brother grew unruly
Mother wept no tears
At burying Davy
At burying Davy
Bring out your weeping weeds
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
Burying Davy Lyrics as written by Colin Meloy
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
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."
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
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."
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,
This song really reminds me of Rox in the Box, from the King is Dead, but this is clearly set in Britain. (No American would call a hat a "ten-pint bowler").
In some nondescript, working class, likely rural area, a logger named Davy has died. His friends, working as a cohesive group, are putting on his funeral. Their lack of emotion implies that they've done this before. Davy's mother doesn't cry at the funeral, and during the ceremony his brother gets upset and becomes rowdy.
The whole song reeks of coldness, poverty, and alcoholism. I love it.
I've heard rural Americans, particularity in the Northwest and in the eastern part of the 'Midwest' (mining and logging areas, as opposed to agriculture) called them ten-pint bowlers'. It's not uncommon. <br /> <br /> I was thinking that Davy might be a bit of a town bully. No one really cares that he's gone, but they're observing his death with a familiar and almost mechanical formality. <br /> <br /> For somoene to have a set of widows weeds, or weeping weeds, they would have to be middle class or better. Making do with anything black would be the standard for working class and working poor. Often only the close family would go into mourning in rural communities, borrowing items of black clothing from friends and neighbors. <br /> <br /> Maybe davy is not even dead. The song never explicitly says that he is, it just says that they're burying him. It certainly seems feasible with the sort of pitch-black cautionary songs that the Decemberists seem to like.<br /> <br />