"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.
They were hiding behind hay bales
They were planting in the full moon
They had given all they had for something new
But the light of day was on them
They could see the thrashers coming
And the water shone like diamonds in the dew
And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun
When I saw those thrashers rolling by
Looking more than two lanes wide
I was feelin' like my day had just begun
Where the eagle glides, descending
There's an ancient river bending
Through the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates
It was then that I knew I'd had enough
Burned my credit card for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one way ticket to the land of truth
And my suitcase in my hand
How I lost my friends, I still don't understand
They had the best selection
They were poisoned with protection
There was nothing that they needed
Nothing left to find
They were lost in rock formations
Or became park bench mutations
On the sidewalks and in the stations
They were waiting, waiting
So I got bored and left them there
They were just dead weight to me
Better down the road without that load
Brings back the time when I was eight or nine
I was watchin' my mama's TV
It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode
Where the vulture glides, descending
On an asphalt highway bending
Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars
Down the windy halls of friendship
To the rose clipped by the bullwhip
The motel of lost companions
Waits with heated pool and bar
But me I'm not stopping there
Got my own row left to hoe
Just another line in the field of time
When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun
Like the dinosaurs in shrines
But I'll know the time has come
To give what's mine
They were planting in the full moon
They had given all they had for something new
But the light of day was on them
They could see the thrashers coming
And the water shone like diamonds in the dew
And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun
When I saw those thrashers rolling by
Looking more than two lanes wide
I was feelin' like my day had just begun
Where the eagle glides, descending
There's an ancient river bending
Through the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates
It was then that I knew I'd had enough
Burned my credit card for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one way ticket to the land of truth
And my suitcase in my hand
How I lost my friends, I still don't understand
They had the best selection
They were poisoned with protection
There was nothing that they needed
Nothing left to find
They were lost in rock formations
Or became park bench mutations
On the sidewalks and in the stations
They were waiting, waiting
So I got bored and left them there
They were just dead weight to me
Better down the road without that load
Brings back the time when I was eight or nine
I was watchin' my mama's TV
It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode
Where the vulture glides, descending
On an asphalt highway bending
Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars
Down the windy halls of friendship
To the rose clipped by the bullwhip
The motel of lost companions
Waits with heated pool and bar
But me I'm not stopping there
Got my own row left to hoe
Just another line in the field of time
When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun
Like the dinosaurs in shrines
But I'll know the time has come
To give what's mine
Lyrics submitted by hurricanejesus
Thrasher Lyrics as written by Neil Young
Lyrics © Hipgnosis Songs Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song has always haunted me with it's timeless criticism of capitalistic values, human nature and the means people will sacrifice to reach an end, or possibly just a luddite's lament.
The valuable contributions in this thread about his breakup with CSN are very keen or at least his relationship with the producers that pushed the band into a corner, likely solves the "rose clipped by the bullwhip" lyric which has always troubled me, never really fit in with the rest of the scornful theme.
Then again the entire song may be a criticism of technology of which agriculture was the first incarnation. Humans stopped hunting and gathering the moment they figured out how to use the earth as a tool and not a gift. Thrashers two lanes wide conjures images of International Harvester combines in Kansas.
Basic overtones of the grim reaper also consume this song from beginning to end an inevitable death everyone faces, even if they catch an hour on the sun.
Neil makes it clear that even though adoption of this technology was not his choice he will eventually succumb to the same consequences as everyone else.