"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.
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
This old engine, makes it on time,
Leaves Central Station at a quarter to nine.
Hits River Junction at seventeen to,
At a quarter to ten you know it's travelin' again.
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Trouble ahead, The Lady in Red,
Take my advice you'd be better off dead.
Switchman sleepin', train hundred and two,
is on the wrong track and headed for you.
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Got two good eyes but we still don't see.
Come 'round the bend, you know it's the end,
The fireman screams and the engine just gleams.
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
This old engine, makes it on time,
Leaves Central Station at a quarter to nine.
Hits River Junction at seventeen to,
At a quarter to ten you know it's travelin' again.
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Trouble ahead, The Lady in Red,
Take my advice you'd be better off dead.
Switchman sleepin', train hundred and two,
is on the wrong track and headed for you.
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Got two good eyes but we still don't see.
Come 'round the bend, you know it's the end,
The fireman screams and the engine just gleams.
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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"
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.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
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.
About the song...
The Dead were not folk musicians (as in Pete Seegers song, Casey Jones) or known to be historians in their time. This song is not about ANY train.
I believe it is about much more than just drugs/cocaine. This song has deeply sexual overtones. Please, don"t miss the reference to the "lady in red"
A train is a sexual reference to serial sexual encounters with a single, usually willing, partner. Musicians (esp, deadheads) are surrounded by groupies on the road. Think about Grand Funks reference to the well known (yes... in the biblical way) sexual groupie, Connie Hamzy. Recall the lyric, Sweet sweet connie was doing her act, she had the whole band and thats a natural fact.
Cocaine as a drug has been widely associated as a precursor to a heightened sexual appetite. I believe this is why, High on cocaine, Casey Jones is "ready" and "speeding".
The trouble ahead, trouble behind may refer to simultaneous front and rear encounters, or it may just reinforce the "train" of band members.
The driving fireman is "coming" around the bend (you know its the end). The fireman screams and the "engine" just gleams. I think you get the picture.
Perhaps the trouble with you and me is that despite our two good eyes, we don't see the lack of love/meaning embodied in these drug crazed band orgies popular on the road of the era.
I should stay above the fray but I don't think these activities were unique to Hippies.
Regardless of the interpretation, its still a catchy tune!
All the best.