"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.
Good morning, it's 3AM in this great roaring city
Full of garbage eaters ravaging parking spots
Beneath my plaza window I see cheetah in their
Tight skins and tired heels all-night hippo in the diner
Crossing the street swarthy heards of young Impala
Flambastic gibbon even a struggling monza
And over there that brilliant head ornament on that
Japanese macaque but look closely at the hammerhead
Hand in hand with the mandrill, it's a sight you're
Unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet
The stench and noise, yes, yes
The howler's Resonating repertoire is not too bad when mixed with
The more musical twern of the tropical warbler
But the impatient taxi blare, the squawking elderly ibis and
The glass-eye snapper hawking papers I can certainly live without
Also be cautious of the poisonous boomslang laughter
Social droppings of the fruit bat and purple queen fish
And who's that babbler conversing with a magazine stand?
Evidently he's getting a good reply
Arrive in neurotica
Through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming heards
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
Arrive in neurotica
Through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming heards
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
I have no fin
No wing, no stinger
No claw, no camouflage
I have no more to say
Say, isn't that an elephant fish on the corner over there
Look at that blush baby mud puppy noolbenger
Rhinoderma, marmoset, spring peeper, shingleback skink
Siren, skate, starling, sun-gazer, spoonbill and suckers
They seem to be everywhere, well it's a live revue
Random animal parts now playing nightly right here in neurotica
So long
Full of garbage eaters ravaging parking spots
Beneath my plaza window I see cheetah in their
Tight skins and tired heels all-night hippo in the diner
Crossing the street swarthy heards of young Impala
Flambastic gibbon even a struggling monza
And over there that brilliant head ornament on that
Japanese macaque but look closely at the hammerhead
Hand in hand with the mandrill, it's a sight you're
Unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet
The stench and noise, yes, yes
The howler's Resonating repertoire is not too bad when mixed with
The more musical twern of the tropical warbler
But the impatient taxi blare, the squawking elderly ibis and
The glass-eye snapper hawking papers I can certainly live without
Also be cautious of the poisonous boomslang laughter
Social droppings of the fruit bat and purple queen fish
And who's that babbler conversing with a magazine stand?
Evidently he's getting a good reply
Arrive in neurotica
Through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming heards
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
Arrive in neurotica
Through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming heards
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
I have no fin
No wing, no stinger
No claw, no camouflage
I have no more to say
Say, isn't that an elephant fish on the corner over there
Look at that blush baby mud puppy noolbenger
Rhinoderma, marmoset, spring peeper, shingleback skink
Siren, skate, starling, sun-gazer, spoonbill and suckers
They seem to be everywhere, well it's a live revue
Random animal parts now playing nightly right here in neurotica
So long
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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.
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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,
Sounds to me to be somewhat influenced by the Beat generation writers. There's also the apparent reference to Howl by Ginsberg, for good measure.