"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.
Everything I love has been taken
I wonder what reason I have to live
Desperately I have searched for a meaning
Is it now time for me to let go of the world
The future that I began to believe in
Seemed so certain, I thought it was mine
That was where and how I would be living
A complete human being with a soul
That was only a dream in a nightmare
And the nightmare is where I now live
Empty life, empty hours without meaning
Hours of madness that make me let go of the world
The revelation of my transformation
Is both a shock and a comfort to me
Leaving behind their conventional wisdom
Their rules that govern the way I should be
The narcissist and the father believing
That they should be worshipped and obeyed
By the lost overwhelmed and bewildered
But for me it is time to let go of the world
Why should I live by rules that I did not make?
So that people I don't know will accept me
I don't care who they are
These hypocrites preaching all of this nonsense
Reject me, they don't know who or what I am
I don't care who they are
Fight, kill, fuck eat, fight, kill, fuck eat
I just don't care who they are
Fight, kill, fuck eat, fight, kill, fuck eat
I just don't care who they are
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
I wonder what reason I have to live
Desperately I have searched for a meaning
Is it now time for me to let go of the world
The future that I began to believe in
Seemed so certain, I thought it was mine
That was where and how I would be living
A complete human being with a soul
That was only a dream in a nightmare
And the nightmare is where I now live
Empty life, empty hours without meaning
Hours of madness that make me let go of the world
The revelation of my transformation
Is both a shock and a comfort to me
Leaving behind their conventional wisdom
Their rules that govern the way I should be
The narcissist and the father believing
That they should be worshipped and obeyed
By the lost overwhelmed and bewildered
But for me it is time to let go of the world
Why should I live by rules that I did not make?
So that people I don't know will accept me
I don't care who they are
These hypocrites preaching all of this nonsense
Reject me, they don't know who or what I am
I don't care who they are
Fight, kill, fuck eat, fight, kill, fuck eat
I just don't care who they are
Fight, kill, fuck eat, fight, kill, fuck eat
I just don't care who they are
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Letting go of the world
Lyrics submitted by Zargoth
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Fast Car
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