"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.
Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess
Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is "yes"
Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine
I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline
And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice
A singer must die for the lie in his voice
And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty
You keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty
Your vision is right, my vision is wrong
I'm sorry for smudging the air with my song
Oh, the night it is thick, my defences are hid
In the clothes of a woman I would like to forgive
In the rings of her silk, in the hinge of her thighs
Where I have to go begging in beauty's disguise
Oh goodnight, goodnight, my night after night
I am so afraid that I listen to you
Your sun glassed protectors they do that to you
It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace
Their knee in your balls and their fist in your face
Yes and long live the state by whoever it's made
Sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late
Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is "yes"
Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine
I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline
And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice
A singer must die for the lie in his voice
And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty
You keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty
Your vision is right, my vision is wrong
I'm sorry for smudging the air with my song
Oh, the night it is thick, my defences are hid
In the clothes of a woman I would like to forgive
In the rings of her silk, in the hinge of her thighs
Where I have to go begging in beauty's disguise
Oh goodnight, goodnight, my night after night
I am so afraid that I listen to you
Your sun glassed protectors they do that to you
It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace
Their knee in your balls and their fist in your face
Yes and long live the state by whoever it's made
Sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late
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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"
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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."
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.
When I first heard this song the first impression in my mind was that it's sort of talking about an artist involved in senator McCarthy hearings and that it's a sarcastic back and forth conversation and in some points the artist's simoltaneously comical and sad view of it. "And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty, you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty. " "Yes and long live the state by whoever it's made,sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late."
You're close!<br /> <br /> Quite a few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Leonard Cohen. He told me that he wrote this song after discovering he'd been put on the Nixon Administration's "Enemies List" -- a list of artists, writers, musicians, and other public figures whom the ever-paranoid Nixon considered somehow "dangerous" or "subversive." In some cases, the "enemies" found themselves harrassed by the FBI/CIA, the IRS, or other governmental goons sent by Nixon. (I have no idea whether or not this happened to Cohen, or even why he was on the list in the first place -- probably because he was popular among "hippies" and other unsavory folks!)<br /> <br /> Cohen asked me not to print this in the article I was writing -- he said, "I don't want to inflame them even more." So I didn't use it, and as far as I know, it was never revealed anywhere else either, But he definitely did tell me this.