"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.
Hang your collar up inside
Hang your dollar on me
Listen to the water still
Listen to the causeway
You are mad and educated
Primitive and wild
Welcome to the occupation
Here we stand and here we fight
All your fallen heroes
Held and dyed and skinned alive
Listen to the Congress fire
Offering the educated
Primitive and loyal
Welcome to the occupation
Hang your collar up inside
Hang your freedom higher
Listen to the buyer still
Listen to the Congress
Where we propagate confusion
Primitive and wild
Fire on the hemisphere below
Sugar cane and coffee cup
Copper, steel and cattle
An annotated history
The forest for the fire
Where we open up the floodgates
Freedom reigns supreme
Fire on the hemisphere below
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Hang your dollar on me
Listen to the water still
Listen to the causeway
You are mad and educated
Primitive and wild
Welcome to the occupation
Here we stand and here we fight
All your fallen heroes
Held and dyed and skinned alive
Listen to the Congress fire
Offering the educated
Primitive and loyal
Welcome to the occupation
Hang your collar up inside
Hang your freedom higher
Listen to the buyer still
Listen to the Congress
Where we propagate confusion
Primitive and wild
Fire on the hemisphere below
Sugar cane and coffee cup
Copper, steel and cattle
An annotated history
The forest for the fire
Where we open up the floodgates
Freedom reigns supreme
Fire on the hemisphere below
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Lyrics submitted by xpankfrisst
Welcome to the Occupation Lyrics as written by Peter Buck Bill Berry
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Fast Car
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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"
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@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Head > Heels
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Plastic Bag
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“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.
I always heard this was about El Salvador--supposedly Stipe is on record saying so. -"hang your collar up inside"=possibly refers to the clerical collars worn by priests. The Liberation Theology movement within the Catholic Church claimed that the Church should support the Sandinistas and other resistance fighters in Central America (The Vatican officially disavowed this). -"primitive and wild"=the official insult of colonialism. Stipe is linking the current exploitation to the atrocities perpetrated by Cortes and the conquistadores. -"held and dyed and skinned alive"=the death squads' weapons of choice were machetes. -"Fire on the hemisphere below"=always reminded me of Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS in which the navy fires cannon shells into the forest for no particular reason.
obviously this song is a prophecy about occupy wall street. i can't possibly see any other meaning.
anyone else think this applies to the current Iraq conflict???
How could it apply to Iraq in 2004 when the song was written in the early '80s? Lol.
@ZinbobDan I'm assuming that by "applies to" you mean that it could be interpreted this way, even though it seems pretty clear that that US military activity (including support of authoritarian groups & regimes, as well as more blatant "occupation") in Latin America was the actual inspiration, and of course was more topical at the time (late '80s).<br /> <br /> I do think a lot of the references in this song are specific to Latin America, but it's true that a lot of people have rightly compared the current "war on terrorism" wars (as well as the earlier Iraq War in the '90s) to the proxy wars that the US was constantly getting into during the Cold War. (I'm including military activities throughout much of the developing world (the phrase "third-world" was originally a reference to those countries that were not considered to be on either side ("first world" meant NATO & allies, "second world" was Warsaw Pact & allies)), especially Latin America, as well as full-blown wars like the Korean & Vietnam "conflicts" in SE Asia.)
At the time the song was written, the "occupation" of most of Latin America was economic rather than military.
While I don't claim to know the exact date when this song was written, Document came out in 1987. I'm not sure where you're considering the line between "economic" and "military" to be drawn (seems to me it's kind of like talking about the "Russian mafia"), particularly when referring to such activities as providing not only funds but arms and personnel for training to the Contras and various authoritarian regimes (mainly military dictatorships, like that in Guatemala). In several cases the U.S.'s actions were condemned internationally, and in at least one that I know of the International Court of Justice decided against the U.S., but Reagan (and later George H.W. Bush) refused to pay reparations, and the U.S. used its veto power to prevent the U.N. from passing a resolution asking it to do so (this seemed to me particularly petty since it was a non-binding resolution). Frankly, a lot of people worldwide consider that the Reagan administration was guilty of human rights violations for providing a variety of aid to governments and terrorist groups that were notorious for engaging in torture, murder of noncombatant civilians, "disappearing" people, etc.; it certainly was a violation of international law. (Reagan also, ah, sidestepped several U.S. laws. Remember something called the Iran-Contra affair?)
When this song came out in 1987 I was to young to know it had any sociopolitical associations or to really grasp most of the lyrics.I don't tend to think of big issues when listening to music,as songs tend to immediately tie me to personal memories. I personally interpreted the phrase "welcome to the occupation" as sort of meaning welcome to your life,this is what you're dealing with through no fault of your own,etc,and "all your fallen heroes" as being about finding out the truth about people,famous or not famous,that you looked up to.So I tended to think of this song as being about loss of the innocence of youth,which it still reminds me of when I hear it now.
It's about the US exploiting Latin America, we support governments who like us and attack those that don't. It also has a lot of references to deforestation. "Sugar cane and coffee cup Copper, steel and cattle" come from the rainforest and there are images of fire throughout. The Occupation is probably being one of the profiteers I suppose. I think it does apply to Iraq - both the political motivations, and the corporate/oil interest type stuff.
it was about a specific occupation of a central american country...i want to say nicaragua, but it could hav been another...since i wanna say nicaragua, i also wanna say it's about the iran-contra affair a little bit...
...i'm probably wrong, i bet it's columbia
I think the "fire on the hemisphere below" pretty much limits it to Central and South America.
It can also mean that someone new to the government can get used to the bad stuff going on very easily and can become corrupted and lose their innocence.
This was definitely written when Nicaragua was a possible target for US invasion, but there was US intervention in other Central American countries and Colombia as well, so it doesn't necessarily exclude them.
The Reagan-era hostility towards socialist Nicaragua was rather active and included the mining of ports.
The US actually invaded Panama just over one year after this album was released, although the US troops withdrew after only a very short "occupation".