"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.
The sigh of summer upon my return
Fifteen alike since I was here
Bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail
Snuffing the first morning rays
Weary from what might have been ages
Still calm with my mind at peace
Would I prosper or fall, drain the past
The lapse of the moment took it's turn
I was foul and tainted, devoid of faith
Wearing my death-mask at birth
The hands of God, decrepit and thin
Cold caress and then nothing
I was taken away from my plight
A treason bestowed to the crowd
Branded a jonah with fevered blood
Ungodly freak, defiler
Pale touch, writhing in the embers
Damp mud burning in my eyes
All the faces turned away
And all would sneer at my demise
Outcast with dogmas forged below
Seared and beaten, banished from where I was born
No mercy would help me on my way
In the pouring rain nothing is the same
Vows in ashes
I pledge myself to no-one
Seethed and spiteful
All shudder at the call of my name
If you'll bear with me
You'll fear of me
There is no forgiveness in these eyes
For any of you but one
Dispel the mist for now
Melinda is the reason why I've come
She is water drops over the pyre
A thistle in my hands
Stained and torn, aged and brown
Virtuous shell with kindred innocence
I awoke from the miasma
Passing swiftly through the moor
This is here, waters stir
And in the distance all that was lost
If you´ll bear with me
You´ll fear of me
You´d never leave me to
A fate with you
Fifteen alike since I was here
Bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail
Snuffing the first morning rays
Weary from what might have been ages
Still calm with my mind at peace
Would I prosper or fall, drain the past
The lapse of the moment took it's turn
I was foul and tainted, devoid of faith
Wearing my death-mask at birth
The hands of God, decrepit and thin
Cold caress and then nothing
I was taken away from my plight
A treason bestowed to the crowd
Branded a jonah with fevered blood
Ungodly freak, defiler
Pale touch, writhing in the embers
Damp mud burning in my eyes
All the faces turned away
And all would sneer at my demise
Outcast with dogmas forged below
Seared and beaten, banished from where I was born
No mercy would help me on my way
In the pouring rain nothing is the same
Vows in ashes
I pledge myself to no-one
Seethed and spiteful
All shudder at the call of my name
If you'll bear with me
You'll fear of me
There is no forgiveness in these eyes
For any of you but one
Dispel the mist for now
Melinda is the reason why I've come
She is water drops over the pyre
A thistle in my hands
Stained and torn, aged and brown
Virtuous shell with kindred innocence
I awoke from the miasma
Passing swiftly through the moor
This is here, waters stir
And in the distance all that was lost
If you´ll bear with me
You´ll fear of me
You´d never leave me to
A fate with you
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Fast Car
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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"
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“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.
the debate seems to 'is it about colour or religion'; i would rather opeth were speaking out about injustice in the world through the beutiful guise o complex poetry, but if you put this song in the context of the still life album, its cover or indead the rest of opeths works, it is clearly a mater of their hazy imaginations; ghosts, deamons and false religion. he is 'outcast with dogmas forged below' which is intresting as the trinity is the only thing i've ever heard described as this was the trinity. but clearly he is not a trinitarian living in a christian town, he hates his creator and he calls himself a godhead (also a wor rarely used out of conjunction with the trinity doctrine)
he is a satanist human at the very least, i think he is something like the angels that disobeyed god in the early chapters of genesis that came down to take human wives.
but as he is not real i think he is an amalgamation of these things.
i like the idea that he is 'the moor' though
however he also seems to be in his affection for melinda not unlike the 'nightmares' in the iron maiden song 'still life' in their attraction to the speaker. for me the song 'still life' is parraleled almost perfectly in this album. first melinda is scared, then mesmerised, attracted and finaly kills herself. just like the speaker in the iron maiden song
also i find it pertinent that our 'moor' or fallen angel, or satanist or beast repents and accepts god in the album final chapter