"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.
Autonomous machete for hands
Warden and judge hide behind masks
Wet raindrop lull
Small rationing
Exhumed the rhetoric of
Break the weak in single file
Sanction this outbreak- a virus conspires
Push becomes shove, days become months
I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun
Feeding frenzy, it's contagious
Have trigger, will travel
Single sparks are spectral fires
Shackled the grapple and the sentinels found
Binoculars watch cardboard towns
Strung up in webs the net was flung
Over the auditorium
Slave trade the weak, no call to arms
Sanction this outbreak; a virus conspires
Push becomes shove, days become months
And I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun
A single spark can start a spectral fire
Have trigger, will travel
Warden and judge hide behind masks
Wet raindrop lull
Small rationing
Exhumed the rhetoric of
Break the weak in single file
Sanction this outbreak- a virus conspires
Push becomes shove, days become months
I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun
Feeding frenzy, it's contagious
Have trigger, will travel
Single sparks are spectral fires
Shackled the grapple and the sentinels found
Binoculars watch cardboard towns
Strung up in webs the net was flung
Over the auditorium
Slave trade the weak, no call to arms
Sanction this outbreak; a virus conspires
Push becomes shove, days become months
And I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun
A single spark can start a spectral fire
Have trigger, will travel
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Whats so amazing about Cedric is his ability to write lyrics that could mean anything to anyone at anytime... there is no wrong and no right way to interpret them. What these lyrics meant to HIM at the moment of him writing them was -
'On the new record we have a song about it called “Quarantine.” A couple high schools next to the Rio Grande - one called Bowie High - close to the border, the kids who go there get hassled by the Border Patrol left and right who don’t realize that (the kids) are just going to high school and not crossing illegally. The reason why the song’s called “Quarantine” is because I see these maids working for nothing, risking their lives to come over. They’re treated like nothing; like germs and diseases. Going over to Guatas to drink and shit when you’re younger, you see a lot of fucked up shit. I come from this nice suburb, but I get on the roof of my house and I can see the shantytowns with cardboard houses. It’s black and white. ' (taken from lollipop.com/archive_temp.php3)
In many interviews, Cedric says that his lyrics are whatever the listener gets from it more than anything else. That being said, I like to think of a zombie apocalypse :)
I think it's about someone who left his family and is in the army and he's fighting a war and he's just describing the ugliness of it.
Sorry for asking such a stupid question but what does the phrase "have trigger, will travel" mean? (I'm not a native english speaker..)
It's not a stupid question, these lyrics are very strange and I can't for the life of me get my head round them. So many thourghts at one.
Have trigger, will travel implies a bounty hunter. "Have Gun Will Travel" was an American western television series about such a guy. I insist this song is about a zombie outbreak and the subsequent struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
I think its about stopping a war because it getting them nowhere.
Have trigger will travel is restating a sinle spark will start a spectral fire. One hateful deed causes more, and then it just spreads into war.
The rain and the bass riff right at the beginning give this song away. The bass is dark and low, reminding me of "Rooster", by Alice in Chains, and numerous Rage Against the Machine songs. Then when the bass stops the guitar does a high solo riff, and it immediately gets louder, like the calm before the storm. "Push becomes shove, days become months, I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun", is just describing how terrible the environment is, and how one hostile action leads to a reciprocated action by the other side, and he is becoming numb to it. and the second verse, from "Shackled the grapple and the sentinels found", to "Sanction this outbreak; a virus conspires", is describing how everyone is turning on everyone else, a net is flung over the civilians in the auditorium, binoculars see cardboard refugee camps, and discipline is falling apart, thus "no call to arms". This could be describing Vietnam, or just as easily, any other conflict.
"Have trigger, will travel", is a play on words. When something is (supposedly)beneficial, one could say "Have [nameless thing], will travel." I think it used to be an advertising slogan.
-tom
"...shackled the grapple and the sentinels found<br /> binoculars watch cardboard towns<br /> strung up in webs the net was flung<br /> over the auditorium<br /> slave trade the weak, no call to arms<br /> sanction this outbreak; a virus conspires<br /> push becomes shove, days become months<br /> and i seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun..."<br /> <br /> This verse I will break down into groups:<br /> <br /> Shackled and grapple a sentinels is found"<br /> A person is tied up in life and fighting back hints grapple.Binoculars watch cardboard towns"....He or she wants us to look at life through their eyes and see how fabercatied everything is, how were all the same just different shapes and sizes like a "cardboard box".....slave trade the weak no call to arms"....stay away from the people that are bring you down shut them out like a master does to his slave....and if you give in you will infects like the rest a conformist....but all this is causing a great deal of dispeare...and you just forget the little things in lofe that make you happy...."I've seem to forggoten the warmth of the sun"<br /> <br />
"...shackled the grapple and the sentinels found<br /> binoculars watch cardboard towns<br /> strung up in webs the net was flung<br /> over the auditorium<br /> slave trade the weak, no call to arms<br /> sanction this outbreak; a virus conspires<br /> push becomes shove, days become months<br /> and i seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun..."<br /> <br /> This verse I will break down into groups:<br /> <br /> Shackled and grapple a sentinels is found"<br /> A person is tied up in life and fighting back hints grapple.Binoculars watch cardboard towns"....He or she wants us to look at life through their eyes and see how fabercatied everything is, how were all the same just different shapes and sizes like a "cardboard box".....slave trade the weak no call to arms"....stay away from the people that are bring you down shut them out like a master does to his slave....and if you give in you will infects like the rest a conformist....but all this is causing a great deal of dispeare...and you just forget the little things in lofe that make you happy...."I've seem to forggoten the warmth of the sun"<br /> <br />
I'm back for more, but I just thought of some new stuff.
The first 2 lines were what really caught my attention in this song. They set up the whole scene. "Autonomous machete for hands" is describing how he feels that he no longer controls his actions, he just kills and feels numb. "Warren and judge hide behind mask" is a reference to their commanding officer, and God, respectively. The CO keeps there there, thus the warren, hiding from the soldiers behind a mask. God is the judge, he also hides from the soldiers, watching their actions ready to judge them. The title, "Quarantined" appears to have no pertinance (sp?) to the actual song, but when you think of the virus in the 7th line of the verse, the virus could represent the men fighting, who are quarantined, kept apart from their families. However, the outbreak, the war, is sanctioned by a higher authority.
The last word of line 8 of my previous post should be 'warden' not 'warren'. A rabbit hole doesn't fit this song very well, unless someone wants to do some interpertation.
thanks a lot, aircataract & tom!