"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 am on the rock and then I check a stock
I have to run like a fugitive to save the life I live
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion
I'm on the run but I ain't got no gun
See they want to be the star
So they fighting tribal war
And they saying iron like a lion in Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion
Yeah, I'm on the rock (running and you running)
I take a stock (running like a fugitive)
I had to run like a fugitive just to save the life I live
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion, iron lion Zion, iron lion Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion, iron like a lion in Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion, (iron lion Zion)
Iron like a lion in Zion
(Running like a fugitive) iron like a lion in Zion
(Iron lion Zion), iron like a lion in Zion
I have to run like a fugitive to save the life I live
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion
I'm on the run but I ain't got no gun
See they want to be the star
So they fighting tribal war
And they saying iron like a lion in Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion
Yeah, I'm on the rock (running and you running)
I take a stock (running like a fugitive)
I had to run like a fugitive just to save the life I live
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
I'm gonna be iron like a lion in Zion
Iron lion Zion, iron lion Zion, iron lion Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion, iron like a lion in Zion
Iron like a lion in Zion, (iron lion Zion)
Iron like a lion in Zion
(Running like a fugitive) iron like a lion in Zion
(Iron lion Zion), iron like a lion in Zion
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings
Iron Lion Zion Lyrics as written by Bob Marley
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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First let me say, I’m not sure why the lyrics for a couple lines of the first verse are truncated here.
I will add them here complete:
I grew up in Brigham Young Country (rural southern Utah) where The US Zion National Park is located... not too far from where Brigham had some henchmen kill a group of travelers trying to pass through to California at Mountain Meadows, and then blamed it to the federal government on the local indians. I was in fact working a summer job at the Zion National Park lodge when I first encountered this song, and took to it immediately.
I haven’t seen any comments yet on these lines: Zion I'm on the run but I ain't got no gun See they want to be the star So they fighting tribal war
Not knowing at the time where the Biblical Zion was located from the Rastafari perspective, I immediately took these Rasta-rich lyrics to be something akin to a Rastafarian foretelling, prediction, prophecy of the LDS (Mormon) Church’s desire to chase Christians into the sect’s camp by fighting with standard Christian interpretations of the lord’s message to humanity.
For my part, I would recognize the authority of Rastafarianism we’ll before I imagined the Mormons to have any godly authority, whereas the LDS/Mormons are far more divisive and “chasing” among peoples! Viva le Haile Saliese