"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.
Would ya spare a minute?
Give me a single chance
To look in your eyes
Let me hold your hands
I want to get close enough
To read you
Understand you
Open up your heart
Open up your mind
Nobody needs another stalker in your life
I'm only here to help you learn to love me
To know me
[Chorus]
I need a hook so you won't be the one that got away
I need a look that stuns you, makes you want to stay.
Don't want to speak in case it comes out wrong
Don't want to blink 'cause in a second you could be gone
I need a twist to help me to turn the story round
I need a bridge to cross this dangerous ground
Meet me in the middle like I want you to
I gotta find your heart to shoot my arrow through
Did ya see me staring
You caught my eye
Don't turn around
Don't walk away
The night is young, can we get together?
Got so many questions
Feelings I can't explain
We're worlds apart
Don't even know your name
I'm longing to give you my heart
[Chorus]
Turn around, don't evaporate
Like you never came
Turn around don't be a ghost
Forever never there to haunt me
Sliding doors
They aren't just on a train
We're alone on a platform in the rain
There's a chance
And it won't come again
Turn around your whole life has changed
[Chorus]
Turn around
Turn around
Give me a single chance
To look in your eyes
Let me hold your hands
I want to get close enough
To read you
Understand you
Open up your heart
Open up your mind
Nobody needs another stalker in your life
I'm only here to help you learn to love me
To know me
[Chorus]
I need a hook so you won't be the one that got away
I need a look that stuns you, makes you want to stay.
Don't want to speak in case it comes out wrong
Don't want to blink 'cause in a second you could be gone
I need a twist to help me to turn the story round
I need a bridge to cross this dangerous ground
Meet me in the middle like I want you to
I gotta find your heart to shoot my arrow through
Did ya see me staring
You caught my eye
Don't turn around
Don't walk away
The night is young, can we get together?
Got so many questions
Feelings I can't explain
We're worlds apart
Don't even know your name
I'm longing to give you my heart
[Chorus]
Turn around, don't evaporate
Like you never came
Turn around don't be a ghost
Forever never there to haunt me
Sliding doors
They aren't just on a train
We're alone on a platform in the rain
There's a chance
And it won't come again
Turn around your whole life has changed
[Chorus]
Turn around
Turn around
Lyrics submitted by sparklefairy
The One That Got Away Lyrics as written by M Tafaro Andrew Marcus Frampton
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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,
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
brilliant lyrics.
i can totally relate 2 the lyrics i like this guy but he thinks i'm a friek!!! he won't even give me the time of day!!!! i had a breakthrough today though!!! he waved at me!!!!
i can totally relate 2 the lyrics i like this guy but he thinks i'm a friek!!! he won't even give me the time of day!!!! i had a breakthrough today though!!! he waved at me!!!!
this song means quite a lot to me , it's just so true. You know there's hat guy who's so HOT , but you know he doesn't pay any attention to you "i need a look that stunns ya, makes ya wanna stay. " that's my fave line probz , becuase that's what i think about when i ge changed for a party..
I think this song is amazing even with all the different mixes it has. It's obvious what it's about, you're sick of losing people so you're hoping and trying to do all these things so the person you love at the moment won't up being like the rest of the people you loved who got away. I think everyone can relate to the lyrics because everyone has been in the same situation as the person described in this song.
I love, this song as I can totally relate to it! I love Natasha anyway but this song is extra special to me! My fae lyric is probably 'don't wanna speak in case it comes out wrong' because I tend to say the wrong fings sometimes. The song is awesome!
Any1 at some point in there life can relate to dis song. it rocks, its sooooo deeeep.
That song really got to me today. "I need a look that stunns ya, makes ya wanna stay. Don't wanna speak in case it comes out wrong Don't wanna blink, cause in a second you could be gone" ^ hit the spot.
I guess the song's about trying to make someone love you, although they don't know you and/or don't like you, or only as a friend...