"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.
I met a little girl in Knoxville
A town we all know well
And every Sunday evening
Out in her home I'd dwell
We decided to take an evening walk
About a mile from town
I picked a stick up off the ground
And I Beat That Fair Girl Down
She fell down on her bended knee for mercy she did cry
Oh willy dear, don't kill me here, I'm unprepared to die.
She never spoke another word, I only beat her more.
Until the ground around us, with all her blood did pour.
I took her by her golden curls and drug her round and round,
Throwing(ed) her into the river that flows through Knoxville town.
Go down, go down you Knoxville girl with dark and rolling eye.
Go down, go down you Knoxville girl, you can never be my bride.
I headed back to Knoxville, got there about midnight.
My mother she was worried and woke up in a fright.
I told my anxious mother I was bleeding out my nose.
I called for me a candle to light myself to bed.
I called for me a handkerchief to bind my aching head
Rolled and tumbled the whole night through as troubles was for me
Like flames of hell around my bed and in my eyes could see
They carried me down to Knoxville and put me in a cell
My friends all tried to get me out but none could go my bail
I'm here to waste my life away down in this dirty old jail.
Because I murdered that Knoxville girl,
The girl I loved so
Well...
A town we all know well
And every Sunday evening
Out in her home I'd dwell
We decided to take an evening walk
About a mile from town
I picked a stick up off the ground
And I Beat That Fair Girl Down
She fell down on her bended knee for mercy she did cry
Oh willy dear, don't kill me here, I'm unprepared to die.
She never spoke another word, I only beat her more.
Until the ground around us, with all her blood did pour.
I took her by her golden curls and drug her round and round,
Throwing(ed) her into the river that flows through Knoxville town.
Go down, go down you Knoxville girl with dark and rolling eye.
Go down, go down you Knoxville girl, you can never be my bride.
I headed back to Knoxville, got there about midnight.
My mother she was worried and woke up in a fright.
I told my anxious mother I was bleeding out my nose.
I called for me a candle to light myself to bed.
I called for me a handkerchief to bind my aching head
Rolled and tumbled the whole night through as troubles was for me
Like flames of hell around my bed and in my eyes could see
They carried me down to Knoxville and put me in a cell
My friends all tried to get me out but none could go my bail
I'm here to waste my life away down in this dirty old jail.
Because I murdered that Knoxville girl,
The girl I loved so
Well...
Lyrics submitted by spliphstar
Knoxville Girl Lyrics as written by Dando
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I have heard this song since I was a child in the Sothern USA. Does anyone know its orgin of meaning. It seems he killed the girl for no reason, except some vague reference to "dark and rolling eye". Think it was originally a Wilburn Brothers song from the 40's.
I have heard this song since I was a child in the Sothern USA. Does anyone know its orgin of meaning. It seems he killed the girl for no reason, except some vague reference to "dark and rolling eye". Think it was originally a Wilburn Brothers song from the 40's.
this song is pretty similar to "banks of the Ohio", in which: '...I led her down the banks of sand, I plunged her in Where she would drown, An' watched her as she floated down.
Returnin' home between twelve and one, Thinkin', Lord, what a deed I've done; I'd killed the girl I love, you see, Because she would not marry me.'
This song is an reworked version of a classic bluegrass song - "Never Let the Devil Get the Upper Hand of You" by the Carter Family in 1937. It was made famous by the Louvin Brothers later in the 50s under "Knoxville Girl."
The song itself is also reworked from a classic English "Street Song" called "Wexville Girl," or "The Berkshire Tragedy" from the 1800s.
This man was in love with a nice church girl, so they'd stroll, enjoy life go to church. The one day he feels pressured to marry her, but instead he starts taking out his anger on her, and he beats her but I think it means he begins treating her harshly when he shouldn't , maybe he says things he knows are hurting her on purpose, and then he kills her and throws her in the river, but I think this could mean he dumps her, and he runs away. He kills her heart maybe not her in the literal sense, but perhaps she only loved him and she was a church girl so he knew that him leaving her was like killing her inside. He thinks he is fine to get rid of her, and his mother sees the blood which may mean his mother sensed he had some sort of guilt, and then he had to lie to his mother about why, he makes up an excuse and his mother buys it so he feels like he is getting away with it, because nobody knows he did it, but then he compares his bed at night to being surrounded by the flames of Hell, so he is obviously tortured and can't sleep because of his own guilt because he knows the girl was innocent and he truly loved her and he knows she didn't deserve what he did to her at all, and he loves her still so he thinks he deserves to suffer now because of what he did to the one he loves. So he then says he is in prison, but I think that can mean a virtual prison, a prison of the repercussions of his own guilt and remorse, and the emptiness he likely feels without her love and company, the loneliness. He made his own bed now he is lying in it thinking about how much he loves that girl and how wrong what he did was, and how he can't ever forget it. I think he would take it back if he could, but he can't because he made sure he got rid of her. That's my interpretation. He betrayed love and his own heart and now he is in a prison of his own emptiness and loneliness and remorse haunted by the memory of her sweet love and innocence and his own mistakes that caused him to lose who he loved most I think.