"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.
Lying on the floor
Four stories high
In the corridor
Between the asphalt and the sky
I am caught like bottled water
The light daughter
I wonder what you look like
Under your t-shirt
I wonder what you sound like
When you're not wearing words
I wonder what we have
When we're not pretending
It's never-ending, haven't you heard?
I don't need to tell you
What this is about
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
We are all poly-lingual
But some of us pretend
There's virtue in relying
On not trying to understand
We're all citizens of the womb
Before we subdivide
Into sexes and shades
This side
That side
And I don't need to tell you
What this is about
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
Undressing for the fan
Like it was a man
Wondering about all the things
That I'll never understand
There are some things that you can't know
Unless you've been there
But oh how far we could go
If we started to share
I don't need to tell you
What it is about
You just start on the inside
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
Four stories high
In the corridor
Between the asphalt and the sky
I am caught like bottled water
The light daughter
I wonder what you look like
Under your t-shirt
I wonder what you sound like
When you're not wearing words
I wonder what we have
When we're not pretending
It's never-ending, haven't you heard?
I don't need to tell you
What this is about
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
We are all poly-lingual
But some of us pretend
There's virtue in relying
On not trying to understand
We're all citizens of the womb
Before we subdivide
Into sexes and shades
This side
That side
And I don't need to tell you
What this is about
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
Undressing for the fan
Like it was a man
Wondering about all the things
That I'll never understand
There are some things that you can't know
Unless you've been there
But oh how far we could go
If we started to share
I don't need to tell you
What it is about
You just start on the inside
You just start on the inside
And work your way out
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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"
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
i wonder what everyone has when they're not pretending. but then we would just be pretending to not be pretending so it would just make things a deeper spiral of lies
As an Ani Difranco fan, i am compelled to comment on her lyrical genius. I feel so inadequately ignorant because i don't know what this is all about. Damn, she makes me jealous.
i think she's saying that to get to know people you start on the inside, at the inner core of who they are. i think she wants to get to the true being of a person, to transcend words, skin, stereotypes, or whatever could be on the surface. but i'm not sure what she means by being "caught like bottled water the light daughter." maybe she feels held in, not able to express herself, she is bottled up. (i don't know :)
I interpret "light daughter" meaning she is stuck (or bottled) in her stereotype of a white woman. And everyone wears a different label, but it doesn't say anything about who we actually are. Because at our core, we are all citizens of the womb. This is a great perspective of sexism and racism in society. We learn from a young age to not discriminate and treat people equally... but we forget so easily...
I think similarly as you starla, except I see it more about "yourself" instead of about somebody else. Start on the inside and work your way out, says to me: start from what you feel and believe and think, and let thát make your behavoir and your outside and your words... (instead of starting from the outside, so starting with the image you want to make to other people, and let that make your behavoir etc, what we all do these days I guess, some in more and some in less )
Personally, I think this song is about Ani having sex (or wanting to have sex) with a female fan.
"and i wonder what you look like under your t-shirt i wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words i wonder what we have when we're not pretending it's never-ending, haven't you heard?"
This is easily conveying the curiosity that Ani and this woman are having.
"we're all citizens of the womb before we subdivide into sexes and shades this side that side"
I think this is a "love is love" statement. We're all just a being before it's decided what we're going to be so we can be brought into the melting pot of opposite-gender sex and how that's the way it's "supposed to be".
"undressing for the fan like it was a man wondering about all the things that i'll never understand there are some things that you can't know unless you've been there but oh how far we could go if we started to share"
I think the first part of this is pretty obvious. She is (or wants to) getting (get) with her, and she's saying that the reason doesn't matter, and all it needs is a little push.
And, as for the chorus,
"lying on the floor four stories high in the corridor between the asphalt and the sky i am caught like bottled water the light daughter "
I really can't focus on one opinion for this, but the most plausible one (to me) is that she's really, really sprung on this chick. "Caught like bottled water". You know, captivated.