"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.
Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died / I miss 'em--they died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
And I salute you brother/ This song is for you my brother
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
"Hey," Herbie said, "Tony, can you fly?"
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, hey, I know it's dangerous,
But it sure beats Riker's
But the next day he got offed
By the very same bikers
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died / I miss 'em--they died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
And I salute you brother/ This song is for you my brother
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
"Hey," Herbie said, "Tony, can you fly?"
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, hey, I know it's dangerous,
But it sure beats Riker's
But the next day he got offed
By the very same bikers
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Lyrics submitted by deletemyaccountplz, edited by BurningOldSage
People Who Died Lyrics as written by Jim Dennis Carroll Brian Ladd Linsley
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Great version of a great song,
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jim carroll knows quite a few dead people...
@roger wilco . But when he knew them, they were alive.
@roger wilco The older you get, the more that happens.
@roger wilco The older you get, the more that happens.
A very excellent song. It's about people who Jim Carroll knew who died and he's known a lot of people who have died. The Basketball Diaries is a wicked movie but it is extremely different from his real life. I highly recommend this song and the movie.
"Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs" The Tombs is the nickname of the Manhattan Detention Center (MDC) If you get arrested in Manhattan, you will spend the night in this jail. (the largest receiving area in the country)
Michael Imperioli (Christopher from Sopranos) played Bobby in the Basketball Diaries. (Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old He looked like 65 when he died He was a friend of mine
There is a chapter about the song in Tom Reynold's "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die - The 52 most depressing songs in the world." It sure is... Depressing. But good, though.
@borderline.lady I believe I OWN that book lol, gonna try to dig it up and read what it says about people who Died… <br /> <br /> But I gotta say, even before I go look for it, that I find this song ???? NOT DEPRESSING IN THE LEAST. <br /> ????♂️ <br /> <br /> It’s actually, and paradoxically, a CELEBRATION of Friendship, specifically, and of “life”, generally.
I love this song so damn much. I don't really think it's depressing, but that's just the way I feel about it.
RIP JC
This song is pretty ironic now.
How so? Gothic Hobbit is ironic (unless we're talking about Aidan Turner), but how is this song ironic? I know you wrote this a long time ago. Curious.
youtube.com/watch
It'd only be ironic if, after writing a song about how everyone is mortal, he went on to live forever.
butterboy- You're absolutely correct.<br /> Yet, somehow you were downvoted twice and RockAngels once.<br /> WTF?<br /> People on this site amaze me.
First punk song I ever loved. We used to clog-dance to it. Ahhhhh....memories.
this is a sad song....well not really and i love it, as much as the movie but i dont feel bad for Jim Carrol in a way because if you read these 2 books "my bloody life" and "once a king, always a king" it's nonfiction and really powerful probably more than the book "a child called it" and because of that book i keep thinking Jim Carrol was offered help, so i dont know but i definitely respect him now.
to hell with the lousy movie, its trash compared to the book. get the book "basketball diaries" in a more perfect world, it would be required reading in schools.
I love this song, glad that it made it to the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.
But, what's the deal with Jim Carrol using the name "Bobby" so many times?
"Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs."
"Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old."
"Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed."
Did he know a lot of people named Bobby, or what?
its a common name. think about how many 40 yo+ people are named Bob or Robert, and when they were young they probably all called them bobby.... makes sense for the era he was coming up in.
@Aith ...least he coulda done is said “Bobby #1, Bobby #2,3,4 etc”...<br /> <br /> Who cares about the meter, and the lyrics fitting...<br /> <br /> Bobby, as noted, is a common name, and doesn’t sound as stupid as saying, for instance, “Johnny...” <br /> <br /> “Wull doowitt fuh JOHNNY...”