"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.
Blue blue caravan
Winding down to the valley of lights
My true love is a man
Who would hold me for ten thousand nights
In the wild wild wailing of wind
He's a house 'neath a soft yellow moon.
So blue blue caravan
Won't you carry me down to him soon
Blue blue caravan
Won't you drive away all of these tears
For my true love is a man
That I haven't seen in years
He said, "Go where you have to
For I belong to you until my dying day."
So like a fool, blue caravan
I believed him and I walked away.
Oh my blue blue caravan
The highway is my great wall
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all
Oh he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
But now, my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
Oh my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
Winding down to the valley of lights
My true love is a man
Who would hold me for ten thousand nights
In the wild wild wailing of wind
He's a house 'neath a soft yellow moon.
So blue blue caravan
Won't you carry me down to him soon
Blue blue caravan
Won't you drive away all of these tears
For my true love is a man
That I haven't seen in years
He said, "Go where you have to
For I belong to you until my dying day."
So like a fool, blue caravan
I believed him and I walked away.
Oh my blue blue caravan
The highway is my great wall
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all
Oh he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
But now, my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
Oh my blue blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing Cold
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
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Hayalperest
Hayalperest
This song seemingly tackles the methods of deception those who manipulate others use to get victims to follow their demands, as well as diverting attention away from important issues. They'll also use it as a means to convince people to hate or kill others by pretending acts of terrorism were committed by the enemy when the acts themselves were done by the masters of control to promote discrimination and hate. It also reinforces the idea that these manipulative forces operate in various locations, infiltrating everyday life without detection, and propagate any and everywhere.
In general, it highlights the danger of hidden agendas, manipulation, and distraction, serving as a critique of those who exploit chaos and confusion to control and gain power, depicting a cautionary tale against falling into their traps. It encourages us to question the narratives presented to us and remain vigilant against manipulation in various parts of society.
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
To me, it's about taking someone for granted and waking up and realising that they won't always be there.
I think it's about a writer who's too attached to her Muse. We (writers) create fictional people for a living - I don't think there's a single one who hasn't had a wonderful Muse take up residence, and then you neglect them for too long, and they fly away ...
Could be a real caravan, or a metaphor. Could be literally blue or emotionally blue. Could be all of those things!
Maybe the blue caravan represents something claustrophobic and also comforting, calming and restricting at the same time. I also think the 'valley of light' might refer to a sky full of stars - or even a lake/ocean with the reflection of stars.
This song has a great significance to me. Plenty of times I've been preoccupied and comforted by what you might call imaginary love and lust - either truly imaginary or because the person I thought was one thing turned out to be someone else.
A friend said this song reminded her of me after I parted ways with my muse, a man I loved but needed to get over because he didn't love me back.
I think the narrator's "true love" could be someone she made up entirely ("he was a beautiful fiction"), or it could be that he was in her life for a time, but left because of things not working out ("my true love is a man that I haven't seen in years"). When she says "the highway is my great wall" it represents the obstacle between her and her muse/the man she lost.
I think "blue caravan" is an actual caravan. I think when she asks it to "carry me down to him soon" she is driving to him, and in the process, thinking of all the great things about him. When she sings all other lines, I think she is just reminesing about him. When she says "who never existed at all" I don't think she meant he didn't exist. I think she means, that who she thought he was, wasn't really who he is. "Oh, he was a beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold And now my blue, blue caravan I can feel my heart growing old"
I believe she is saying that she made up this "image" of him to make herself feel better. And I think the last two lines is her driving away from him, and stopping loving him. If that makes any sense.
Granted, this is just my take, but I think it's a good one.
The blue caravan, is Vienna's word vehicle for a sad, blue, emotional state the man was real, however her belief the he would actually stick around was a "beautiful fiction" something that she concocted to "keep out the cold" or the reality that he wasn't what she wanted him to be. Her "True love was a man that never existed at all" the man she loved wasn't the man that existed. She loved a fantasy version of him.
So, that's my take, what do you guys say.
I think FragileStrength is right: I think Vienna is talking about a real caravan.
In fact, I think the song is sung from the perspective of three different women, traveling together. They're approaching their destination (their caravan is "winding down to the valley of lights," which makes me think they're traveling at night and climbing down paths into the valley where the lights of the town glimmer below). One woman (I picture her as youngest of the three) is eager to get to where they're going to be reunited with her "true love." The other two women recall their "true loves," one woman regrets that she believed her man would wait for her forever, the other (I imagine her as the oldest/wisest) has enough distance from her "true love" to see that she had idealized him to the point of "beautiful fiction" and believed him to be something he wasn't.
At any rate, whatever your interpretation, the song is just beautiful. I love Vienna. :)
In my opinion, this is a song about somebody who has loved someone dearly, but found out that the person they fell in love with is not real: he is a fabricated version of this man, and the real man is far from the image that he first showed to her. He seemed perfect for her, but after she found out what he was really like, the relationship was never the same.
I think this song is about a woman that gets lost in a snowy pass. She sees a Caravan that appears Blue to her because of the mountain light. She is trying to get to it and to give her strength creates a man she needs to get home to. But she eventually succumbs to the elements and not even the figment of her imagination can get her to the Caravan which could take her down to the valley and safety.