"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.
Is it all so very simple
And horribly complex
You're suffering the thimble
And there's nothing coming next
Your mom smokes in the kitchen
Her voice a cutting drone
They're creeping out, you pass the bar
Your father's second home
That leaves you on your own
Nights I'd often watch you
Float across the grounds
Out the gate to the motorway
What secrets have you found?
You had to know I wanted
Something from you then
Too young to know just what it was
Something more than a friend
Is that you at the end
Well, you play in the street at night
You blow like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?
My mother says you're dirty
They're gonna find you dead
But have you got that final chapter
Written in your head
'Cause every single story
Is a story about love
Both the overflowing cup
And the painful lack thereof
You got the heart of a dove
But you play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
You'll have to lose all them childish notions
If you're gonna let these American boys
Put another dent in your life
You play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
You'll have to lose all them childish notions
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?
And horribly complex
You're suffering the thimble
And there's nothing coming next
Your mom smokes in the kitchen
Her voice a cutting drone
They're creeping out, you pass the bar
Your father's second home
That leaves you on your own
Nights I'd often watch you
Float across the grounds
Out the gate to the motorway
What secrets have you found?
You had to know I wanted
Something from you then
Too young to know just what it was
Something more than a friend
Is that you at the end
Well, you play in the street at night
You blow like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?
My mother says you're dirty
They're gonna find you dead
But have you got that final chapter
Written in your head
'Cause every single story
Is a story about love
Both the overflowing cup
And the painful lack thereof
You got the heart of a dove
But you play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
You'll have to lose all them childish notions
If you're gonna let these American boys
Put another dent in your life
You play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you're giving up the fight
You'll have to lose all them childish notions
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
"40 Mark Strasse" is the nickname for the street where American servicemen at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany can pick up prostitutes. I think that this song tells the story of a local guy who's in love with a girl who feels that all she can do is go to 40 Mark Strasse. Her Mom isn't there for her and her dad's a drunk, and she sees no future in her life. He loves her, and despite everyone telling him to give up on her, he feels the need (for whatever reason) to reach out to her and steer her back in the right direction. He says that she doesn't know what she's getting into, and that she should listen to him so that the American boys don't end up being just another group of people in her life that doesn't appreciate her.
If you want to take it to a deeper level, this song could be talking about American foreign policy and military involvement, and how, in the opinion of the songwriter, it's destroying the lives of people around the world who initially thought that they would be benefiting from it.
I like the ambiguity in your take on it, I think that's exactly what they were going for with this song but taking the whole thread through the complete album which seems veeery political (which is amazing, more big bands like this should throw some shit at those assholes in the white house and who runs the world), take the song No Way Down for example, it's pure genious.
it was supposed to say I am chosing to take in the message of the last part of your post.
“When I was a kid and we were living in Germany, I used to go with my dad when he sang in nightclubs. We couldn’t afford a babysitter every night, so I would go with my parents to the nightclub and stay until two in the morning and fall asleep in a booth. We would drive back to Rammstein Air Force Base, and along that route is this stretch called 40 Mark Strasse, named so by the G.I.s on the base. Because it’s where you can go get a hooker for 40 marks. Which was $20 at the time, in the ‘80s. I mean I had sexual feelings toward girls, but when you’re nine and stuff you don’t. I just knew it was like adult shit that was sketchy. But the girls seemed very young; they looked like high-school-age girls, shivering in bus shelters in short shorts in the cold. The theme in this song is that there’s this young German kid who lives in the apartment building where one of these girls lives and he’s infatuated with her. So off she goes at night, and he doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.”
magnetmagazine.com/2012/03/26/magnet-web-exclusive-the-shins-james-mercer-on-the-new-port-of-morrow/
I just read this interview with James Mercer, he said when he was young he used to cross that street sometimes. He said he was too young to understand what was going on but thought it was interesting to figure out what was behind those artificial faces. This is the interview, it's in Dutch though: nu.nl/muziek/2771432/the-shins-grijpt-terug-jeugdjaren.html
When you read the history of the street 40 Mark Strasse, the song's meaning becomes obvious. I agree with aerogingh's interpretation explaining how the songwriter feels the need to save the girl in the song. He's ignoring what everyone says about her being trash, and trying to prove to her that someone still cares for her. He's trying to convince her she doesn't have to trow her life away. The song is written about a very sad subject, and although you get the feeling he might be failing to change the girl's mind about her future, it still manages to be very romantic.
I went to see The Shins play live at Terminal 5 in NYC. Before they played "40 mark Strasse", James Mercer explained what the song was about. He said that there was an overpass nicknamed "40 Mark Strasse" between the house he lived in in New Jersey for a while, and the bar/club where his father played music sometimes. He had seen women under the overpass and thought that one of them was beautiful. His mother had explained to him that prostitues hung out around 40 mark strasse, and he imagined a story in which a kid fell in love with one of the prostitutes, and this song is that story.
I saw The Shins at the Filmore in Detroit, and that's not the story James Mercer told.
For some reason, this song reminds me of The Virgin Suicides. I see a boy watching a mysterious girl from afar, but still knowing a lot about her life, knowing her troubles.
She doesn't have a great life, her dad lives at the bar, and she seems to be spiraling downwards ["my mother says your dirty, they're gonna find you dead," "you blow just like a broken kite, you're giving up the fight"]. But he wants her, and he wants her to overcome everything she is facing.
I saw The Shins in concert and James Mercer explained the meaning behind the song. It's about a prostitute during WWII (I think in Poland), and the boy in the song is younger than her and is in love with her. They live in the same town and he watches her. She sleeps with American soldiers, hence, "Are you gonna let these Americans / Put another dent in your life?"
i think it's definitely about prostitutes. "you BLOW like a broken kite", "my mother says you're dirty, they're gonna find you dead", "you play in the streets at night", "i wanted something from you", "your father's second home" (as in sleeping with older men at motels). also 40 marks i believe is german currency? so kinda like $40 street. it's gotta be about hookers.
The girl might be a prostitute, but your interpretation of "you blow like a broken kite" is a bit of a stretch; explicitly referring to a blowjob doesn't exactly seem like Mercer's style, and even if "blow" meant "blowjob" in this case, what does a blowjob like a broken kite feel like? More likely, he means that she floats around, with no stability or place in the world; she isn't grounded, because her parents can't provide that for her, and she hasn't yet learned to make her own way.<br /> <br /> I also think that when he refers to the bar as her father's second home, she means his father's always there (he's probably an alcoholic who wastes all his money at the bar), and when he says "I wanted something from you", I think he means something more than sex; you seem to be ignoring the next three lines, "too young to know just what it was / something more than a friend / is that you at the end?" That sounds like romantic interest. I can't really comment on "you play in the streets at night", but that's odd language for a prostitute. <br /> <br /> Overall, I'm more inclined to think it's about a girl from a poor / broken family (who might be destined to become a prostitute, but I don't think she is yet). He's fascinated by her, even though nobody else thinks much of her.
"she means his father's" should be "he means her father's" above. I'm so used to having an edit feature...