"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.
Interrupting all programs
This is radio clash from pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room,
Cashing in the bill of rights
Cuban army surplus or refusing all third lights
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This sound does not subscribe
To the international plan
In the psycho shadow of the white right hand
Then that see ghettology as an urban Vietnam
Giving deadly exhibitions of murder by napalm
This is radio clash tearing up the seven veils
This is radio clash please save us, not the whales
This is radio clash underneath a mushroom cloud
This is radio clash
You don't need that funeral shroud
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
Hands of law have sorted through
My identity
But now this sound is brave
And wants to be free, anyway to be free
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This is not free europe
Noh an armed force network
This is radio clash using audio ammunition
This is radio clash can we get that world to listen?
This is radio clash using aural ammunition
This is radio clash can we get that world to listen?
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room,
Cashing in the bill of rights
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This is radio clash everybody hold on tight
A-riggy diggy dig dang dang
Go back to urban 'nam
This is radio clash from pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room,
Cashing in the bill of rights
Cuban army surplus or refusing all third lights
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This sound does not subscribe
To the international plan
In the psycho shadow of the white right hand
Then that see ghettology as an urban Vietnam
Giving deadly exhibitions of murder by napalm
This is radio clash tearing up the seven veils
This is radio clash please save us, not the whales
This is radio clash underneath a mushroom cloud
This is radio clash
You don't need that funeral shroud
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
Hands of law have sorted through
My identity
But now this sound is brave
And wants to be free, anyway to be free
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This is not free europe
Noh an armed force network
This is radio clash using audio ammunition
This is radio clash can we get that world to listen?
This is radio clash using aural ammunition
This is radio clash can we get that world to listen?
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room,
Cashing in the bill of rights
This is radio clash on pirate satellite
This is radio clash everybody hold on tight
A-riggy diggy dig dang dang
Go back to urban 'nam
Lyrics submitted by aebassist, edited by randy14801
This Is Radio Clash/Radio Clash Lyrics as written by Mick Jones Joe Strummer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Bunny you're the stupid fuck, listen to the version of "This is Radio Clash" on the Essential Clash you'll notice that these lyrics are to that version