"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 finally broke into the prison,
I found my place in the chain.
Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows,
All the brave young men
They're waiting now to see a signal
Which some killer will be lighting for pay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture,
You whom I cannot betray.
I fought in the old revolution
On the side of the ghost and the King.
Of course I was very young
And I thought that we were winning;
I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing
As they carry the bodies away.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
Lately you've started to stutter
As though you had nothing to say.
To all of my architects let me be traitor.
Now let me say I myself gave the order
To sleep and to search and to destroy.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
Yes, you who are broken by power,
You who are absent all day,
You who are kings for the sake of your children's story,
The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money,
The hand of your lover is clay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
I found my place in the chain.
Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows,
All the brave young men
They're waiting now to see a signal
Which some killer will be lighting for pay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture,
You whom I cannot betray.
I fought in the old revolution
On the side of the ghost and the King.
Of course I was very young
And I thought that we were winning;
I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing
As they carry the bodies away.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
Lately you've started to stutter
As though you had nothing to say.
To all of my architects let me be traitor.
Now let me say I myself gave the order
To sleep and to search and to destroy.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
Yes, you who are broken by power,
You who are absent all day,
You who are kings for the sake of your children's story,
The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money,
The hand of your lover is clay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
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."
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Sometimes Leonard's songs are so full of personal meaning, metaphor and symbols it is hard for me not to project my own journey onto the songs, especially at times in my life that are particularly stressful or destabilizing. Alas, here is just my interpretation.
I finally broke into the prison, I found my place in the chain. Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows, All the brave young men They're waiting now to see a signal Which some killer will be lighting for pay. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture, You whom I cannot betray.
(this song reflects themes of oppression and the "beautiful losers" of the world. Thanks for the props Leonard! Breaking out of prison to find your place on the chain to me means aggressively breaking free from physical oppression only to gladly welcomes it back into your life in the form of mental prison. But even then, there is hope, yes, even in damnation. Given the fact that all the young men are going off to war to die, Cohen invites us to descend into the existential furnace of a churning, grinding nonsensical life that could actually support this happening, in order to take a look at why we allow this to happen. He will meet you there, and here there is no betrayal, only truth. And truth is that war is insane).
I fought in the old revolution On the side of the ghost and the King. Of course I was very young And I thought that we were winning; I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing As they carry the bodies away. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture,
Of course war, social/cultural commentary, magic and love are alive in Cohen's work. Which is great, because otherwise he'd just be another cynic. He once believed in kings and queens as a young man, but the depression of life, especially after WW2, like the dead young soldiers, invites despair and steals away his creativity. Still, he invites us to venture into the furnace, to meet life head on, in all it's sickness and mystery).
Lately you've started to stutter As though you had nothing to say. To all of my architects let me be traitor. Now let me say I myself gave the order To sleep and to search and to destroy. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
(I'm probably so dead wrong about this song, like I was with "Avalanche." Here the furnace venturing people lose their voice, their identity. They shake through the "awful descend into the wound," and "the dark night of the soul." But he's got your back, he understands, for he is a traitor to his conditioning, imploring you to find a new way to be in the world, one that makes sense for contemporary man, whose task it is to sleep, search and destroy timeworn, archaic thoughts structures, such as religion.)
Yes, you who are broken by power, You who are absent all day, You who are kings for the sake of your children's story, The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money, The hand of your lover is clay. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture
(to the underdog's, the oppressed, you are heroic, like Lennon's "working class hero" or Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom," you are heroic (rich) just the way you are, in spirit, in your commitment to family. From the ashes of marital mediocrity you can still build meaning and mystery into the awesomeness of life).