"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.
Take advantage of weakness in thought
The thought of you is crawling on my skin
I've grown to accept my mistakes
Solid stance in a secluded embrace
Bitter ways that will rise above
Intrusion on this time to reflect
Gritting teeth in a cage of disrespect
Laughter in a moment of neglect
A war started over self righteous needs
Putting innocence in harm's way
Burning wrath of intent
Time to brace the broken sleep
Take the extreme approach
Falling down on trust
Given death to see
Bullets to your head
A bad apple of my eye
Filled with worms of stolen life
Reveal this lost childhood stage
Later outcome for this unkept rage
Dissolve into desire
Growing away from one another
Settling affection that constricts
Grip on scorn behavior
All my friends hate each other
Modest pride lost in this foreplay age
Happiness in problems
Living life in an empty bottle
A backyard open to the world of failure
Defiance of the age of wounds
Clear sight lost in countless ways
Anger breeds in mindless grace
Quiet moment before the end of days
This new age to blame the weak
Mental scars forever scream
Vision of this self rebellion
Dead endeavor of this silenced pain
Arrange this standard
This effigy to sooth the nerves
Keep this mind from straying under staring eyes
Wearing this masked expression
A constant twitch of reaction
Loaded problems that will hide behind the skull
I am in search of the end
Knotted in the gut from a parent's fight
Death is my closest friend
Locked door to the parents' room
I've grown to deny my mistakes
A war finished over selfish ways
Broken teeth in an intense display
Laughter grows to raise your enemies
Precious time
Raping all that is held close
A war of words
These scratchings of a mad man
Filth back talk
Washing your mouth out with soap
All my losses
A day of dead days
Turning to ashes with the phoenix in flames
Like the tenderness We had grown for each other
Step aside and let me hear the complaints
This equal sight for the judgement
Absitenence will want the change
Eyes open
Spit out the truth with no disguise
Surround with caution
These hands being tied
Blank mind set
Naked to the world of regret
Spit out the truth
Slander the rights of love
The thought of you is crawling on my skin
I've grown to accept my mistakes
Solid stance in a secluded embrace
Bitter ways that will rise above
Intrusion on this time to reflect
Gritting teeth in a cage of disrespect
Laughter in a moment of neglect
A war started over self righteous needs
Putting innocence in harm's way
Burning wrath of intent
Time to brace the broken sleep
Take the extreme approach
Falling down on trust
Given death to see
Bullets to your head
A bad apple of my eye
Filled with worms of stolen life
Reveal this lost childhood stage
Later outcome for this unkept rage
Dissolve into desire
Growing away from one another
Settling affection that constricts
Grip on scorn behavior
All my friends hate each other
Modest pride lost in this foreplay age
Happiness in problems
Living life in an empty bottle
A backyard open to the world of failure
Defiance of the age of wounds
Clear sight lost in countless ways
Anger breeds in mindless grace
Quiet moment before the end of days
This new age to blame the weak
Mental scars forever scream
Vision of this self rebellion
Dead endeavor of this silenced pain
Arrange this standard
This effigy to sooth the nerves
Keep this mind from straying under staring eyes
Wearing this masked expression
A constant twitch of reaction
Loaded problems that will hide behind the skull
I am in search of the end
Knotted in the gut from a parent's fight
Death is my closest friend
Locked door to the parents' room
I've grown to deny my mistakes
A war finished over selfish ways
Broken teeth in an intense display
Laughter grows to raise your enemies
Precious time
Raping all that is held close
A war of words
These scratchings of a mad man
Filth back talk
Washing your mouth out with soap
All my losses
A day of dead days
Turning to ashes with the phoenix in flames
Like the tenderness We had grown for each other
Step aside and let me hear the complaints
This equal sight for the judgement
Absitenence will want the change
Eyes open
Spit out the truth with no disguise
Surround with caution
These hands being tied
Blank mind set
Naked to the world of regret
Spit out the truth
Slander the rights of love
Lyrics submitted by sokorny
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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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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.