"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'm at the end of my rope
And I'm starting to choke
The noose is tightening around my throat
It's strangling the hope
That's hiding in my soul
I argue with myself 'cause I can't take control
So drag me through the trough
With my Vietnam cough
And take this straitjacket off
I'm powerless and down
And cracking from the stress
Constricting like a python as it tightens 'round my chest
I gotta fucking death wish
Fighting all my enemies
Wrecking all their fucking dreams
My hands they bleed from the nails
Fingers make a fist
Don't tell me I'm a fatalist
Dancing 'round so frantically
Laughing so maniacally
I can't escape insanity
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
So get the fuck away from me and hide knives
'Cause I can't trust myself tonight
I'll straight up lie and say
Anything to make it alright
You said you'd love me till the end
Now you want to end?
It's not the end till I say so!
Take your little razor blades
Cut me up and shed the pain
Let them stitch my heart up, black it out
Hand print on the wall
Blood holds me in thrall
Castrated by the butcher's blade that severs all
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
Nails rake the skin in perfect rows
Spine shivers down from head to toe
Feeling sicker every second that passes
I vomit the pain as I puke 'til I gasp
My breathing quickens, heart starts to race
The lines sink deeper into my face
Peel the filth away, a sick bloody habit
Pick through the scabs as I sift through the maggots
Tobacco stains and tar
Fingernails burnt and charred
The smell of piss and rain
The odor haunts my brain
Psychotic
Thoughts from hell arise
Do I wanna let silence die?
Kill myself to survive
Needle in my arm and the damage is done 'cause I'm
Psychotic
Thoughts below arise
Do I wanna let silence die?
Kill myself to survive
Needle in my arm and the damage is done and I'm
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
And I'm starting to choke
The noose is tightening around my throat
It's strangling the hope
That's hiding in my soul
I argue with myself 'cause I can't take control
So drag me through the trough
With my Vietnam cough
And take this straitjacket off
I'm powerless and down
And cracking from the stress
Constricting like a python as it tightens 'round my chest
I gotta fucking death wish
Fighting all my enemies
Wrecking all their fucking dreams
My hands they bleed from the nails
Fingers make a fist
Don't tell me I'm a fatalist
Dancing 'round so frantically
Laughing so maniacally
I can't escape insanity
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
So get the fuck away from me and hide knives
'Cause I can't trust myself tonight
I'll straight up lie and say
Anything to make it alright
You said you'd love me till the end
Now you want to end?
It's not the end till I say so!
Take your little razor blades
Cut me up and shed the pain
Let them stitch my heart up, black it out
Hand print on the wall
Blood holds me in thrall
Castrated by the butcher's blade that severs all
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
Nails rake the skin in perfect rows
Spine shivers down from head to toe
Feeling sicker every second that passes
I vomit the pain as I puke 'til I gasp
My breathing quickens, heart starts to race
The lines sink deeper into my face
Peel the filth away, a sick bloody habit
Pick through the scabs as I sift through the maggots
Tobacco stains and tar
Fingernails burnt and charred
The smell of piss and rain
The odor haunts my brain
Psychotic
Thoughts from hell arise
Do I wanna let silence die?
Kill myself to survive
Needle in my arm and the damage is done 'cause I'm
Psychotic
Thoughts below arise
Do I wanna let silence die?
Kill myself to survive
Needle in my arm and the damage is done and I'm
Trapped in my pain
Fight to keep myself sane
Silent I scream
Tortured by these dark dreams
Lyrics submitted by TheImpalerTMX
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
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”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."