"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.
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?
When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting in death row
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'd have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell
You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of "The Harder They Come"
You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
oh, the guns of Brixton
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?
You can crush us
You can bruise us
And even shoot us
But oh, the guns of Brixton
Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game was survivin'
As in heaven as in hell
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'd have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?
When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting in death row
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'd have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell
You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of "The Harder They Come"
You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
oh, the guns of Brixton
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?
You can crush us
You can bruise us
And even shoot us
But oh, the guns of Brixton
Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game was survivin'
As in heaven as in hell
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'd have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
Oh, guns of Brixton
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Correct me if I’m wrong someone, but isn’t this song about yardie gangsters? For any non-Brits reading this, yardies are ruthless Jamaican gangsters, so called because they have a reputation for shooting people on their own doorsteps i.e. in the ‘yard’ of their homes. Most yardie gangs operate in or near Brixton in south London.