"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.
There was no time for pain
No energy for anger
The sightlessness of hatred slips away
Walking through winter streets alone
He stops and takes a breath
With confidence and self-control
I look at the world and see no understanding
I'm waiting to find some sense of strength
I'm begging you from the bottom of my heart
To show me understanding
I need to live life
Like some people never will
So find me kindness
Find me beauty
Find me truth
When temptation brings me to my knees
And I lay here drained of strength
Show me kindness
Show me beauty
Show me truth
The way your heart sounds
Makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
Makes all the difference
In learning to live
Here before me is my soul
I'm learning to live
I won't give up till I've no more to give
No more to give
Listening to the city
Whispering its violence
I set out watching from above
The 90's bring new questions
New solutions to be found
I fell in love to be let down
Once again we dance in the crowd
At times a step away
From a common fear that's all spread out
It won't listen to what you say
Once you're touched you stand alone
To face the bitter fight
Once I reached for love
And now I reach for life
Another chance to lift my life
Free the sensation in my heart
To ride the wings of dreams
Into changing horizons
It brings inner peace within my mind
As I'm lifted from where I spilt my life
I hear an innocent voice
I hear kindness, beauty and truth
The way your heart sounds
Makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
Makes all the difference
In learning to live
Spread before you is your soul
So forever hold the dreams within our hearts
Through nature's inflexible grace
I'm learning to live
No energy for anger
The sightlessness of hatred slips away
Walking through winter streets alone
He stops and takes a breath
With confidence and self-control
I look at the world and see no understanding
I'm waiting to find some sense of strength
I'm begging you from the bottom of my heart
To show me understanding
I need to live life
Like some people never will
So find me kindness
Find me beauty
Find me truth
When temptation brings me to my knees
And I lay here drained of strength
Show me kindness
Show me beauty
Show me truth
The way your heart sounds
Makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
Makes all the difference
In learning to live
Here before me is my soul
I'm learning to live
I won't give up till I've no more to give
No more to give
Listening to the city
Whispering its violence
I set out watching from above
The 90's bring new questions
New solutions to be found
I fell in love to be let down
Once again we dance in the crowd
At times a step away
From a common fear that's all spread out
It won't listen to what you say
Once you're touched you stand alone
To face the bitter fight
Once I reached for love
And now I reach for life
Another chance to lift my life
Free the sensation in my heart
To ride the wings of dreams
Into changing horizons
It brings inner peace within my mind
As I'm lifted from where I spilt my life
I hear an innocent voice
I hear kindness, beauty and truth
The way your heart sounds
Makes all the difference
It's what decides if you'll endure the pain that we all feel
The way your heart beats
Makes all the difference
In learning to live
Spread before you is your soul
So forever hold the dreams within our hearts
Through nature's inflexible grace
I'm learning to live
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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"
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
The AIDS thing is probably what the song was WRITTEN about, but I have a different interpretation. I feel that it's about just getting all the shit that's on your mind off of your mind. Learning to live means learning to live peacefully, tranquily, relaxed, and healthy (mentally, not neccessarily physically.) Kind of reminds me of the whole prying open your third eye thing.