"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.
Running from the suburbs
Skipping heartbeats
Living by my own front teeth
Put my faith into a number
Push the odds aside
We swore we'd make it out alive
But you lied
An old dream still haunts me
A time machine
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I heard you're living somewhere upstate
With a new life
Is that really what you had in mind?
But I don't want to let go
And watch it all unfold
I couldn't if I even tried
And I tried
You left me stuck sixteen
Without a time machine
I knew you then
Ripped jeans and a playground of cement
I knew you then
Gold rings but you never could commit
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
A drop into the ocean
A telephone call
A future waiting to dissolve
I knew you then
Ripped jeans and a playground of cement
I knew you then
Gold rings but you never could commit
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
Skipping heartbeats
Living by my own front teeth
Put my faith into a number
Push the odds aside
We swore we'd make it out alive
But you lied
An old dream still haunts me
A time machine
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I heard you're living somewhere upstate
With a new life
Is that really what you had in mind?
But I don't want to let go
And watch it all unfold
I couldn't if I even tried
And I tried
You left me stuck sixteen
Without a time machine
I knew you then
Ripped jeans and a playground of cement
I knew you then
Gold rings but you never could commit
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
A drop into the ocean
A telephone call
A future waiting to dissolve
I knew you then
Ripped jeans and a playground of cement
I knew you then
Gold rings but you never could commit
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
I knew you then
Lyrics submitted by scarrlet123
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