"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 witnessed the youth washing off us,
and pool round our feet like a lake.
[hums]
If you lower yourself into darkness,
No point tying the rope round your waist.
[hums]
I heard about your father,
the olive in the arbor, and the stone inside your heart just the same.
The statue wept milk in the garden,
hoping something might grow there again.
[hums]
I feel all these forces,
Like riderless horses, now free from the cart.
We bandage our feet again,
skip over peace again,
hurry apart.
Now the bulrushes twist into baskets,
Like our histories and futures entwined, oh-whoa.
The Obadiah low on the branches ,
are turning the water to wine, oh-whoa.
It's hard enough to be here,
Such a distance from the sea,
30,000 years I've survived.
And all of those kings I've anointed,
Still shook like a leaf at my sight.
[hums]
I feel all these forces,
like riderless horses now free from the cart.
We bandage our feet again,
skip over peace again,
hurry apart.
We've tasted the fruit I guess,
snakes in the roof I guess,
whisper the parse.
See how the lightning tree,
fought in a sign of peace,
burns in the dark.
It burns in the dark.
and pool round our feet like a lake.
[hums]
If you lower yourself into darkness,
No point tying the rope round your waist.
[hums]
I heard about your father,
the olive in the arbor, and the stone inside your heart just the same.
The statue wept milk in the garden,
hoping something might grow there again.
[hums]
I feel all these forces,
Like riderless horses, now free from the cart.
We bandage our feet again,
skip over peace again,
hurry apart.
Now the bulrushes twist into baskets,
Like our histories and futures entwined, oh-whoa.
The Obadiah low on the branches ,
are turning the water to wine, oh-whoa.
It's hard enough to be here,
Such a distance from the sea,
30,000 years I've survived.
And all of those kings I've anointed,
Still shook like a leaf at my sight.
[hums]
I feel all these forces,
like riderless horses now free from the cart.
We bandage our feet again,
skip over peace again,
hurry apart.
We've tasted the fruit I guess,
snakes in the roof I guess,
whisper the parse.
See how the lightning tree,
fought in a sign of peace,
burns in the dark.
It burns in the dark.
Lyrics submitted by utsuseru
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Fast Car
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
The first thing to note about this song is how hauntingly beautiful yet elegant and simple it is. As for my interpretation of the lyrics, they contain the lovely syntax and poetry characteristic of Peter Liddle and DtR; this song is full of biblical references of course, while making religious iconography ambiguous enough to apply to relationships/one's own life as well. Of course, the instrumentation and ethereal, Jeff Buckley-esque vocals of this track are so chillingly beautiful I have a hard time not tearing up, that's the kind of emotion I've become accustomed to DtR being able to summon with their music.
Anyway, the lyrics broken down to me go like this:
The Theme of Peace Peace is referenced first in mention of an "olive in the arbor", the olive branch and tree being traditional symbols of peace. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_branch] It is referred to directly in the verse where peace is once again skipped over.
Bible
Obadiah-
Bulrushes- likely referring to the famous Ark of the Bulrushes story (the papyrus boat that the baby Moses was discovered in).
Weeping Statues- Though they usually weep blood, and I can't seem to find any stories of them weeping milk (I rule out the Milk Miracle of India being the origin of this lyric, because there was no statue weeping)
Turning Water to Wine- Jesus famously did this as a "miracle" [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeping_statue]
Tasted the Fruit- [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_fruit]
Snakes in the Roof- A common place where unwanted snakes to come into contact with people, the snake, which is of course [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_%28Bible%29]
Whisper the Parse- My best guess is that, the definition of parse could be vaguely seen as "the process of analysing a string of symbols", and in the context of the song this means that the Serpents are whispering some malevolent and unknowable future by knowing how to read the symbols.
To Be Continued...