"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.
Woop-woop! That's the sound of da police!
Woop-woop! That's the sound of the beast!
Stand clear! Don man a talk
You can't stand where I stand
You can't walk where I walk
Watch out! We run New York
Police man come, we bust him out the park
I know this for a fact
You don't like how I act
You claim I'm sellin' crack
But you be doin' that
I'd rather say "see ya"
Cause I would never be ya
Be a officer? You WICKED overseer!
Ya hotshot, wanna get props and be a saviour
First show a little respect
Change your behavior
Change your attitude, change your plan
There could never really be
Justice on stolen land
Are you really for peace and equality?
Or when my car is hooked up
You know you wanna follow me
Your laws are minimal
Cause you won't even think about
Lookin' at the real criminal
This has got to cease
Cause we be getting HYPED to
The sound of da police!
Now here's a likkle truth open up your eye
While you're checking out the boom bap
Check the exercise
Take the word "overseer, " like a sample
Repeat it very quickly in a crew for example
Overseer overseer overseer overseer
Officer, Officer, Officer, Officer!
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
The overseer rode around the plantation
The officer is off patroling all the nation
The overseer could stop you what you're doing
The officer will pull you over
Just when he's pursuing
The overseer had the right to get ill
And if you fought back
The overseer had the right to kill
The officer has the right to arrest
And if you fight back they put
A hole in your chest!
(Woop) They both ride horses
After 400 years, I've got no choices!
The police them have a little gun
So when I'm on the streets
I walk around with a bigger one
(Woop-woop) I hear it all day
Just so they can run the light
And be upon their way chorus
Check out the message in a rough stylee
The real criminals are the C-O-P
You check for undercover and the one PD
But just a mere Black man, them want check me
Them check out me car for
It shine like the sun
But them jealous or them vexed
Cause them can't afford one
Black people still slaves up til today
But the Black police officer nah
See it that way him want a salary
Him want it
So he put on a badge and kill people for it
My grandfather had to deal with the cops
My great-grandfather dealt with the cops
My GREAT grandfather had to
Deal with the cops
And then my great, great, great
Great when it's gonna stop?!
Woop-woop! That's the sound of the beast!
Stand clear! Don man a talk
You can't stand where I stand
You can't walk where I walk
Watch out! We run New York
Police man come, we bust him out the park
I know this for a fact
You don't like how I act
You claim I'm sellin' crack
But you be doin' that
I'd rather say "see ya"
Cause I would never be ya
Be a officer? You WICKED overseer!
Ya hotshot, wanna get props and be a saviour
First show a little respect
Change your behavior
Change your attitude, change your plan
There could never really be
Justice on stolen land
Are you really for peace and equality?
Or when my car is hooked up
You know you wanna follow me
Your laws are minimal
Cause you won't even think about
Lookin' at the real criminal
This has got to cease
Cause we be getting HYPED to
The sound of da police!
Now here's a likkle truth open up your eye
While you're checking out the boom bap
Check the exercise
Take the word "overseer, " like a sample
Repeat it very quickly in a crew for example
Overseer overseer overseer overseer
Officer, Officer, Officer, Officer!
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
The overseer rode around the plantation
The officer is off patroling all the nation
The overseer could stop you what you're doing
The officer will pull you over
Just when he's pursuing
The overseer had the right to get ill
And if you fought back
The overseer had the right to kill
The officer has the right to arrest
And if you fight back they put
A hole in your chest!
(Woop) They both ride horses
After 400 years, I've got no choices!
The police them have a little gun
So when I'm on the streets
I walk around with a bigger one
(Woop-woop) I hear it all day
Just so they can run the light
And be upon their way chorus
Check out the message in a rough stylee
The real criminals are the C-O-P
You check for undercover and the one PD
But just a mere Black man, them want check me
Them check out me car for
It shine like the sun
But them jealous or them vexed
Cause them can't afford one
Black people still slaves up til today
But the Black police officer nah
See it that way him want a salary
Him want it
So he put on a badge and kill people for it
My grandfather had to deal with the cops
My great-grandfather dealt with the cops
My GREAT grandfather had to
Deal with the cops
And then my great, great, great
Great when it's gonna stop?!
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
Woop! Woop! Lyrics as written by Marlin Greene Eddie Hinton
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network, O/B/O DistroKid, Capitol CMG Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.