"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.
Thank God for how I'm learning how to live
That's the ticket
That's the way of the world
That's the spirit
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
Johnny Rotten hit me upside the head with a billy club
He also knocked me to the ground
He also shot me with his BB gun
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
The electric eel shocked the hell out of me
He also blew me out of the water
He did, thanks to his ass
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
Pontiac, we build excitement
That's the ticket
That's the way of the world
That's the spirit
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
Johnny Rotten hit me upside the head with a billy club
He also knocked me to the ground
He also shot me with his BB gun
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
The electric eel shocked the hell out of me
He also blew me out of the water
He did, thanks to his ass
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
2 x 4
I'm going to hit you with a 2 x 4
Pontiac, we build excitement
Lyrics submitted by spliphstar
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
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”
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.
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.
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.
Many years ago I heard this song, and I was in anguish, struggling to find out what it meant.
Years later, I went to Wal-Mart, and this man who looked familiar came up to me and talked to me for like 15 minutes about this song, 2x4 by Wesley Willis. This person, I later realized, after checking The Shrine when I returned home, was in fact, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus H. Christ, In The Holy Flesh. Later I was diagnosed with Prosopagnosia, but anyway.
This song, as Our Lord and Savior, Jesus H. Christ, In The Holy Flesh told me at Wal-Mart during our fifteen minute conversation about 2x4 by Wesley Willis, is about religious hypocrisy. "Thank God for how I'm learning how to live," he says, followed soon thereafter by, "I'm going to hit you with a 2x4." Of course, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus H. Christ, In The Holy Flesh, Whom I Met At Wal-Mart, teaches us not to be violent, "hit[ting]... with a 2x4" included.
However, Wesley Willis, thanks to the aforementioned vision of God, has a spiritual awakening. He is shown visions that expose to him his own violent nature, visions of himself beating people up with 2x4s, and is appalled by his violent nature. When he says that the electric eel "shocked" him later on, this is a double entendre. Not only did the electric eel physically hurt him, but the violence surprised him, and shook him into a different, religious perspective in which he opposes violence. This is why, in the next verse, Johnny Rotten, Of Punk Fame, Whom My Daughter Met At Target, is beating him up. Punk music is what caused Willis' violent nature, and like Satan, it is only hurting himself. In the first verse, he thanks the Holy Spirit for this vision. We know this because he says, "that's the spirit." Punk music, as everyone knows, is satanic and violent, and therefore caused his violent nature. It only bit him in the "ass," so to speak.
In the final verse, Willis employs aquatic imagery, very common in the Bible (from Jesus walking on water, to Jesus turning water into wine, etc.) to represent his metaphorical baptism. That is why he is "blown out of the water," not back onto land, but into a higher plane of spiritual understanding. We know this because he says the eel "shocked the HELL out of him." Not only, then, would he be blown the opposite direction of Hell, towards Heaven, but also be rid of his Satanic, violent urges like before.
I cant believe nobody has commented on this!