"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.
It's been such a long week
So much crying
I no longer see a future
I've been told when I get older
That I'll understand it all
But I'm not sure if I want to
Running into her arms
At the school gates
She whispers that I'm a poor kid
And Granny takes me on her knee
She tells me I'm too sensitive
She makes me sad
She makes me feel like an old man
She makes me feel like an old man
They took the game right out of it
They took the game right out of it
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut
And find Peter Pan
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Dennis loves to look
In the mirror
He tells me that he is beautiful
So I look too, and what do I see?
My eyes are full
But my face is empty
He's got a photo
Of his hero
He keeps it under his pillow
But I've got a pin-up
From a newspaper
Of Peter Pan
I found it in a locket
I hide it in my pocket
They took the game right out of it
They took the game right out of it
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut
And find Peter Pan
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true"
So much crying
I no longer see a future
I've been told when I get older
That I'll understand it all
But I'm not sure if I want to
Running into her arms
At the school gates
She whispers that I'm a poor kid
And Granny takes me on her knee
She tells me I'm too sensitive
She makes me sad
She makes me feel like an old man
She makes me feel like an old man
They took the game right out of it
They took the game right out of it
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut
And find Peter Pan
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Dennis loves to look
In the mirror
He tells me that he is beautiful
So I look too, and what do I see?
My eyes are full
But my face is empty
He's got a photo
Of his hero
He keeps it under his pillow
But I've got a pin-up
From a newspaper
Of Peter Pan
I found it in a locket
I hide it in my pocket
They took the game right out of it
They took the game right out of it
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut
And find Peter Pan
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
Second star on the right
Straight on 'til morning
"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true"
Lyrics submitted by weezerific:cutlery, edited by Mellow_Harsher
In Search of Peter Pan Lyrics as written by Kate Bush
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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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"
Mountain Song
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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For me, this is a song about the fear of making the transition from childhood to adulthood in tact and as a person who was "raised right (correctly)." The real fear here seems to be one of not outgrowing those things which make us charmingly child-like when we are young but tragically childish when we're adults such as neediness and vanity.
When one considers how young Kate was when she wrote this song (15-20 years old?), and particularly when one compares it to the likes of so many unnameable "chanteuses" very popular today, it is really astounding in its depth and insight. Haunting, eerie, whimsical, lilting, tragic, and secretive all at once...it seems to tie into the cover photo of LIONHEART very directly. IMHO...
These are the trials of being a teenager.
She's right though, they do take the game out of it
This song is obviously about a young boy.. but when I heard the song I imagined the child in the song being Wendy. the way she has to deal with the pressure of growing up
A beautiful song capturing childhood anxieties, disappointments, pressures, fears, etc.
The opening lines suggest any turmoil a child faces - divorce, loss, entering school, bullying, etc… These upset ‘the fun’. Hence, ‘They took the game right out of it…’
The adult voices (‘Oh! When you’re older, you’ll understand it all!’ … ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ … ‘There! There! My dear! Such a sensitive child!’) don’t achieve the reassurance they offer. Adult and child worlds can be exclusive; (word) misunderstandings can heighten fears, self-doubts, and achieve the opposite effect; and from the child’s perspective, the (adult) world can seem impossible, frightening, horrid, etc.
‘Dennis’ is a confident child whose heroes are real people (‘photo’). His heroes are functioning vehicles into adulthood. His confidence (unintentionally) heightens the other’s fear of emptiness and disconnection. So the other retreats into and uses the reassuring world of Peter Pan to negotiate his/her transition into adulthood. Such is the endurance of the Peter Pan myth!
I imagine this as Kate being a young girl and looking up at her brother in a way that Scout does with Jem in To Kill A Mockingbird. She wants to be a man and be strong like Peter Pan but does not want to become as moody as all the adults.