"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.
Oh big stripey lie moving
Like a wavy line
Coming up behind
All young gentle dreams drowning
In life's grief
Can you hang onto me?
Don't want to hurt you baby
I only want to help you
I could be good for you
Your name is being called by sacred things
That are not addressed nor listened to
Sometimes they blow trumpets
Only want to help you
Never want to hurt you
I know I could be good for you
Oh my God it's a jungle in here
You've got wild animals loose in here
Want to help you
Never hurt you
Good for you
Hey all you little waves run away
Run away
Like a wavy line
Coming up behind
All young gentle dreams drowning
In life's grief
Can you hang onto me?
Don't want to hurt you baby
I only want to help you
I could be good for you
Your name is being called by sacred things
That are not addressed nor listened to
Sometimes they blow trumpets
Only want to help you
Never want to hurt you
I know I could be good for you
Oh my God it's a jungle in here
You've got wild animals loose in here
Want to help you
Never hurt you
Good for you
Hey all you little waves run away
Run away
Lyrics submitted by weezerific:cutlery, edited by hans792391
Big Stripey Lie Lyrics as written by Kate Bush
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I wonder if KB is referring to Sylvia Plath's 'Tulips' in Big Stripey Lie... ?
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat... 'Tulips' by Sylvia Plath, 1965
Oh my God it's a jungle in here You've got wild animals loose in here...
The 'wild animals' could represent a jungle of flowers, their gaping petals stretched out, "opening like the mouth of some great African cat"... Indeed, maybe the song has a clinical setting, like visiting a patient in an acute psychiatric unit... A Black-eyed Susan and A Black-eyed dog of depression... The 'big stripey lie moving Like a wavy line' could even refer to an electrocardiogram... The 'Don't want to hurt you' could represent the concern of a friend, relative or psychiatric nurse. It sounds desperate and frightening in the song because it is being heard by a desperate and frightened patient... Psychotic, Paranoid and Sunburnt...
KB: "[Big Stripey Lie] took on the shape of wandering into someone's emotional world which is jungle-like and 'wild'."
One Flew East and One Flew West And One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest...