"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.
Heard every word that was said that night
When the light of the world put the world to right
Well here's to the boys back in 628
Where an ear to the wall was a twist of fate
I will shine a blinding light
Through those hearts as black as night
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But as least the seeds of love will be sown
Now once in awhile when I feel no shame
I get down on my knees and I pray for rain
And though the breeze blows gently while I state my case
There'll be certain men waiting just to scratch my face
Hand on my heart I will make a stand
For the life and the times of the mirror man
In my head there is a mirror
When I've been bad, I've been wrong
Food for the saints that are quick to judge me
Hope for a Badman
This is the Badman's Song
Guilt in the frame of the looking-glass
Puts a shine on the mind where reflections pass
Where the jigsaw pieces of a broken man
Try and fit themselves together again
Lies in disguise in the name of trust
Put your head in the sand it will turn to dust !
What's your problem ? What's your curse ?
Won't it make the matter worse ?
In my head...
And they say " Faith can move move mountains
Fire can cleanse your soul "
Faith can move mountains
But mind over matter won't you stop all your chatter, no!
I heard every word that was said that night
When the light of the world put the world to right
When I hear soft whispers at the break of day
(I'm in trouble every step of the way)
Sweet talking boys who can do no wrong
When the stories are tall as the day is long
With such a thin drawn between friend and foe
Lord help me now and bless my soul !
Look at yourself, see how you lie
Your hands start shaking and you don't know why
Look at yourself, see how you lie
Your hands start shaking and you don't know why
Well there's food for the saints that are quick to judge me
Hope for a Badman.
When the light of the world put the world to right
Well here's to the boys back in 628
Where an ear to the wall was a twist of fate
I will shine a blinding light
Through those hearts as black as night
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But as least the seeds of love will be sown
Now once in awhile when I feel no shame
I get down on my knees and I pray for rain
And though the breeze blows gently while I state my case
There'll be certain men waiting just to scratch my face
Hand on my heart I will make a stand
For the life and the times of the mirror man
In my head there is a mirror
When I've been bad, I've been wrong
Food for the saints that are quick to judge me
Hope for a Badman
This is the Badman's Song
Guilt in the frame of the looking-glass
Puts a shine on the mind where reflections pass
Where the jigsaw pieces of a broken man
Try and fit themselves together again
Lies in disguise in the name of trust
Put your head in the sand it will turn to dust !
What's your problem ? What's your curse ?
Won't it make the matter worse ?
In my head...
And they say " Faith can move move mountains
Fire can cleanse your soul "
Faith can move mountains
But mind over matter won't you stop all your chatter, no!
I heard every word that was said that night
When the light of the world put the world to right
When I hear soft whispers at the break of day
(I'm in trouble every step of the way)
Sweet talking boys who can do no wrong
When the stories are tall as the day is long
With such a thin drawn between friend and foe
Lord help me now and bless my soul !
Look at yourself, see how you lie
Your hands start shaking and you don't know why
Look at yourself, see how you lie
Your hands start shaking and you don't know why
Well there's food for the saints that are quick to judge me
Hope for a Badman.
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More Featured Meanings
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"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
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."
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,
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Famously about members of the road crew on the Big Chair tour who Roland overheard badmouthing him one night through his hotel room wall. Room 628 was the party room.
While it is quite likely that Roland did overhear others trashing him in Room 628 and felt he wanted to write about this, the strange angels visiting me claimed they were “musing” around with him so while he was thinking he was writing about himself, they had him writing their story. Since they are freeloaders—although they would say it’s more like taking opportunity by the horns—this could be the case.
In their story, their chatter was overheard by listening with an ear to the wall to either the recordings or letters read aloud that the boys in 628 had come upon. They claim their chatter has so much more to do with the light of the world and the task of putting the world right than Roland’s life did but this is just talk and they don’t always tell the truth. And the boys in 628 heard about the lady left with the chore of shining the blinding light through the hearts and it is a dangerous task not readily understood by those who might beat the living shit out of her if they could catch her. Hopefully this part was cosmic humor …
The mirror-man had to do with her instructor who kept saying that he was working all his magic with mirrors which could have been hoo-hah but then mirrors did figure into some of it. This teacher was also a bad-ass beastly dude—Freddie Mercury’s hitman—and so it is the Badman’s Song. When sticks and stones could break her bones while she sows the seeds of love, it makes sense to send a Badman along for the ride …
The jigsaw pieces of a broken man referred to the tendency the angels would have of dissecting some of those they visited—hopefully for their own positive edification although I couldn’t be certain. And “but mind over matter—won’t you stop all your chatter” is like a line from a mind meld with them. So is “sweet talking boys who can do no wrong—when the stories are tall as the day is long”.
But since the stories are tall as the day is long, this could all have been their invention—although they sounded convincing to me. Still, I was a captive audience and we know how that goes … I guess songs can do double-duty ...
if u are a dead man walking u need God
give me a break sillybunny, tricks are for kids, your way off.