"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.
My face is finished, my body's gone
And I can't help but think standin' up here
In all this applause and gazin' down
At all the young and the beautiful
With their questioning eyes
That I must above all things love myself
That I must above all things love myself
That I must above all things love myself
I saw a girl in the crowd
I ran over I shouted out
I asked if I could take her out
But she said that she didn't want to
I changed the sheets on my bed
I combed the hairs across my head
I sucked in my gut and still she said
That she just didn't want to
I read her Eliot, read her Yeats
I tried my best to stay up late
I fixed the hinges on her gate
But still she just never wanted to
I bought her a dozen snow-white doves
I did her dishes in rubber gloves
I called her honeybee, I called her love
But she just still didn't want to
She just never wants to
Dammit!
I sent her every type of flower
I played a guitar by the hour
I patted her revolting little chihuahua
But still she just didn't want to
I wrote a song with a hundred lines
I picked a bunch of dandelions
I walked her through the trembling pines
But she just even then didn't want to
She just never wants to
I thought I'd try another tack
I drank a litre of cognac
I threw her down upon her back
But she just laughed and said
That she just didn't want to
I thought I'd have another go
I called her my little O
I felt like Marcel Marceau
Must feel when she said
That she just never wanted to
She just didn't want to
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
Damn, damn, woo
No pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues, woo
Yeah, yeah, woo
And I can't help but think standin' up here
In all this applause and gazin' down
At all the young and the beautiful
With their questioning eyes
That I must above all things love myself
That I must above all things love myself
That I must above all things love myself
I saw a girl in the crowd
I ran over I shouted out
I asked if I could take her out
But she said that she didn't want to
I changed the sheets on my bed
I combed the hairs across my head
I sucked in my gut and still she said
That she just didn't want to
I read her Eliot, read her Yeats
I tried my best to stay up late
I fixed the hinges on her gate
But still she just never wanted to
I bought her a dozen snow-white doves
I did her dishes in rubber gloves
I called her honeybee, I called her love
But she just still didn't want to
She just never wants to
Dammit!
I sent her every type of flower
I played a guitar by the hour
I patted her revolting little chihuahua
But still she just didn't want to
I wrote a song with a hundred lines
I picked a bunch of dandelions
I walked her through the trembling pines
But she just even then didn't want to
She just never wants to
I thought I'd try another tack
I drank a litre of cognac
I threw her down upon her back
But she just laughed and said
That she just didn't want to
I thought I'd have another go
I called her my little O
I felt like Marcel Marceau
Must feel when she said
That she just never wanted to
She just didn't want to
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
Damn, damn, woo
No pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues
I got the no pussy blues, woo
Yeah, yeah, woo
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“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.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
"As our dreams and desires are hung on the butcher's hook of rampant consumerism, and the mirage and the illusion and the Nike trainers are served up on the trembling quim of an impossibly nubile girl-thing, No Pussy Blues tells it like it is," suggests Cave. "It is the child standing goggle-eyed at the cake shop window, as the shop-owner, in his plastic sleeves, barricades the door and turns the sign to "CLOSED". It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman."
"Set over a throbbing pornographic bass line, the world holds its breath for the onslaught of the wah's shriek of frustration and dirty water," counters Casey. "No Pussy Blues continues in the blues tradition and its timeless fascination with getting laid... or not."
"It's 'Back Door Man', it's 'Crawling King Snake', it's 'Tiger Man'," says Ellis.
"It's 'Shake Rattle and Roll'," says Sclavunos.
It's the 'tash, Nick!
Hmmm - not my type, even before the 'tash (looks too much like Cletus on The Simpsons). But that's a good point- chances of Nick (or any rock star) being unable to get a bunk-up? Nil. No matter how personal his songs sound, they all come from his fertile imagination. Amazing, then, how he seems to FEEL them - that "Damn!" is pure pent-up frustration. The man's a genius.
Grinderman are one hell of a band and I don't want to live in a world where a bloke like Nick Cave can't get laid (yes it's a joke as I know it's not an autobiographical song).
Hm. Nick Cave can't get laid? :p
I would so do Nick Cave.
LOL at your "it's the 'tash" comment, Morbid, because I had the same thought.
I'm not too sure about all the songs coming from his "fertile imagination" though, since Boatman's Call was straight from the heart and real life. Maybe it's just a certain someone who "just fucking doesn't want to". Susie Bick?
I really love the distorted bass in this song. Also, not to be nitpicky, but it's actually "Yeats," as in W.B. Yeats, the poet.
Feminism has deprived him of all the formerly sure-fire methods of getting laid. Even throwing her down upon her back is fruitless, for she laughs it off in an emasculating denial of his dominance.
Or perhaps she scoffs at an aging man's use of a young man's methods.
This song is about a lesbian....when he says "no pussy" he means he doesn't have one.
this is the truth.