"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.
One more little one
I'll go down and stay down
Sleep the rest of the day
Dreaming music to calm down
And stay down and keep evil away
I can see you asleep
Changing your shape
Dissolved in some dream
As a new one appears
To take you along where you've never been
The moonlight tonight seems to belong to me
'Cause I never go to sleep
I keep it company
One hit wouldn't matter a bit I'll
Stay down and think
What's here to find
If it's good or?
And I won't know the fact that I'm dying
If I seem to be reckless with myself
It's the fault of no one
All things have a place
Under the moon as well as the sun
One more
Little one I love you
I'll go down and stay down
Sleep the rest of the day
Dreaming music to calm down
And stay down and keep evil away
I can see you asleep
Changing your shape
Dissolved in some dream
As a new one appears
To take you along where you've never been
The moonlight tonight seems to belong to me
'Cause I never go to sleep
I keep it company
One hit wouldn't matter a bit I'll
Stay down and think
What's here to find
If it's good or?
And I won't know the fact that I'm dying
If I seem to be reckless with myself
It's the fault of no one
All things have a place
Under the moon as well as the sun
One more
Little one I love you
Lyrics submitted by dragonflower44, edited by IvanhoeHei, ian1774721, Will26, Jate
Little One Lyrics as written by Paul Smith Gil George
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Walt Disney Music Company
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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The missing lyric is "if it's good shit you won't know and I won't know the fact . . ."
I think the album may have better been ended with this song rather than "distorted reality," which could have been placed earlier. My reason comes from the last several lines: "all things have a place under the moon as well as the sun." These lines to me represent the most affirming moment of the record and offer relief from the darkness that encompasses the rest. With these lines, I believe Elliott is reassuring himself and all of us that the pain he has experienced and set to music, indeed his life, his death, are all part of a greater human experience, not all of which is about suffering (as his life was not all about this), but of which suffering is a necessary, inescapable part. His art was about describing human frailty, inner pain, and external conflict with unflinching honesty - that he set all this to some of the most beautiful melody ever written accomplishes in song a portrayal of life's ever-present dialectic between suffering and joy. In this way, he accomplishes what only the greatest artists and literary figures have done.