"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.
Looking at your watch a third time
Waiting in the station for the bus
Going to a place that's far
So far away and if that's not enough
Going where nobody says hello
They don't talk to anybody they don't know
You'll wind up in some factory
That's full-time filth and nowhere left to go
Walk home to an empty house
Sit around all by yourself
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
At night, I drink myself to sleep
And pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
'Cause it's so much easier to handle
All my problems if I'm too far out to sea
But something better happen soon
Or it's gonna be too late to bring you back
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
It's not as though I really need you
If you were here, I'd only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants to bring you down
And that's not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
Waiting in the station for the bus
Going to a place that's far
So far away and if that's not enough
Going where nobody says hello
They don't talk to anybody they don't know
You'll wind up in some factory
That's full-time filth and nowhere left to go
Walk home to an empty house
Sit around all by yourself
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
At night, I drink myself to sleep
And pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
'Cause it's so much easier to handle
All my problems if I'm too far out to sea
But something better happen soon
Or it's gonna be too late to bring you back
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
It's not as though I really need you
If you were here, I'd only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants to bring you down
And that's not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
And waste another year
Lyrics submitted by xpankfrisst
(Don't Go Back To) Rockville 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"
Holiday
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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.
Mountain Song
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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."
Gentle Hour
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Mike Mills wrote it, it IS about a girl who Mike had a crush on and i believe dated a few times ( Her name was Ingrid Schorr). Anyway she was moving out of Athens to Rockville, this was Mike's plea to her to stay
Peter Buck produced an Uncle Tupelo album, "March 16—20, 1992", wich was released on Rockville Records. I always thought it would have been nice if the song were a reference to that. It isn't, of course, it was written years earlier. But it is one of my favourite R.E.M. songs, especially with Mills on vocals.
this song means everything to me. It says that it's easy to go home because that's where everything is easy. Your old friends, your old lover. Take the job your dad had, and never open up yourself up to the possibility of what else is out there. I wish I had listened to Michael's advice a little more.
Surely it's saying it's lonelier & tougher going back, not easier? *'what else is out there' - Could be great, or could just be serial killers out there; it's the grass always greener illusion, but wherever you go you take yourself with you, so best to work out how to enjoy wherever it is you are rather than imagine it's bound to better elsewhere.. Altho' I have yet to take that advice myself..
Rockville is a Mills song; he wrote it and he sings it. Therefore, any Stipe reference, is moot.
It's about Mills' then girlfriend who was tired of his broke ass ways: "yeah yeah just you wait - me and my band are gonna be rich and famous" "Whatever don't call me"
@Willyhyena <br /> According to Ingrid, she went back to Rockville because she was partying too much and drank her way to a crappy GPA!
nice song! REM is kickin like spanish chicken
ever since i went to college, i've replaced "don't go back to rockville" w/ "don't go back to butler"...in honor of the shithole i once called home
this song is about not going back to the old things that you used to know just because they are conforting. instead look forward because life is always changing and you have to change with it.
This song is about a girl who was at their college, she was really hot, and rich, and lived in a city called Rockville, which was an great place to live. Nobody ever wanted her to go back. That's what I read anyway.
The way I heard it, it was about Jefferson Holt leaving and going back to Rockville, MD and the song was kind of a silly goodbye song for him.
You're right about it being Rockville, Maryland (suburb of D.C.) but it was addressed to Mike Mills' girlfriend at the time, Ingrid Schorr.
this song got me to like Americana because I used to think any country-ish sounding song was ment for yahoos and country bumpkins!