"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.
Don't smoke around the baby
'Cause that's not fair to him
Sometimes we get so frigging lazy
In our baby-soft skin
What have we become
There's no surprise
They say we came from pond scum
We came in with a big bang
Might as well go out with one
The government is a hard case
Life is on the skids
They built a fence to keep the kids out of the tar pond
They can't keep the tar pond out of the kids
And we're lying around on the couch with a mouthful of cheesies
We're easily sucked in to a talk-show cat fight
Two jewelry-clad mad women who want their dead ex-husband's money
No more fish
More dead frogs found in Antigonish
This harsh world we live in
Is no place to raise an amphibian
Don't smoke around the baby
'Cause that's not fair to him
Sometimes we get so frigging lazy
In our baby-soft skin
What have we become
There's no surprise
They say we came from pond scum
We came in with a big bang
Might as well go out with one
'Cause that's not fair to him
Sometimes we get so frigging lazy
In our baby-soft skin
What have we become
There's no surprise
They say we came from pond scum
We came in with a big bang
Might as well go out with one
The government is a hard case
Life is on the skids
They built a fence to keep the kids out of the tar pond
They can't keep the tar pond out of the kids
And we're lying around on the couch with a mouthful of cheesies
We're easily sucked in to a talk-show cat fight
Two jewelry-clad mad women who want their dead ex-husband's money
No more fish
More dead frogs found in Antigonish
This harsh world we live in
Is no place to raise an amphibian
Don't smoke around the baby
'Cause that's not fair to him
Sometimes we get so frigging lazy
In our baby-soft skin
What have we become
There's no surprise
They say we came from pond scum
We came in with a big bang
Might as well go out with one
Lyrics submitted by orchy
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"I was originally inspired to write this song when I was at Chuggle's in Antigonish, Nova Scotia with Rock Ranger reading a newspaper. One of the headlines read, "More Dead Frogs Found in Antigonish." I have since discovered that 32% of the world's amphibian population is either extinct or endangered. This is due to disease, pollution and climate change. I have always had a soft spot for frogs, and as a child I kept many as pets. We would catch them in the brook behind our house and return them later." - Colleen Power