"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.
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Just A Little Lovin'
Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
I don't think it's necessarily about sex. It's about wanting to start the day with some love and affection. Maybe a warm cuddle. I'm not alone in interpreting it that way! For example:
"'Just a Little Lovin’ is a timeless country song originally recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1954. The song, written by Eddie Miller and Jimmy Campbell, explores the delicate nuances of love and showcases Arnold’s emotive vocals. It delves into the universal theme of love and how even the smallest gesture of affection can have a profound impact on our lives." https://oldtimemusic.com/the-meaning-behind-the-song-just-a-little-lovin-by-eddy-arnold/
This is my first post here, so feel free to ignore me because I'm a newbie and, therefor, a complete idiot.
The way I think of this is, the "character" in the album never actually kills himself. He's not that lucky. In both of these last two songs, the suicide is just an idle fantasy that he never goes through with. In "The Downward Spiral," the screams and such are a metaphor for his mad desperation to make the pain go away. In the song "Hurt," he gets his wish; it doesn't hurt anymore. The pain is gone, but he has become so dehumanized that there's nothing else left. He is the living dead.
@sykodude Most likely yes, and his new hardcore determination coming through in the song "nothing can stop me now". When you no longer have any barriers holding you back from becoming whatever you want to be, unlimited potential is unlocked. So although an extremely dark and disturbingly depressing scene, the character is coming to terms with this unresolved psychological barrier and eventually finds a way to move past it. Once you hit the absolute bottom, there really is nowhere else one can go.
Hmm. There seems to be a lot of debate about whether the protagonist of this concept album actually commits suicide. This track is the album's namesake, and it seems the obvious climax. I feel that:
-Mr. Self Destruct establishes the character, and his demons, and establishes the concept of the album. -The meat-and-potatoes of the album represents a building of pressure as the character comes closer and closer to the act of suicide (while confronting religion, sex, drugs, etc).
-Hurt has a sense, for me, of understanding and (of all things!) humility. It says to me that the character practiced a little "cutting", using physical pain as a way to bring themselves back to reality, but couldn't go through the act of suicide. The realization that he had no control over the cessation of his suffering, not even control through escape via suicide, effectively broke him of any anger or rage- by the final track, he is utterly and completely without hope.'
This has just always been my interpretation. Surely the protagonist of the album doesn't HAVE to be Trent (the speaker is not always the author, as it is in literature). But obviously he's treading on familiar ground, or he wouldn't get these feelings so perfectly right. It makes more sense to me, aside from the context of the album, that Trent could relate more to almost-suicide than actual suicide. After all, he obviously didn't commit the latter.
All of this imHo, of course.
Hurt is the epilogue. Look at the lyrics at the end
If I could start again a million miles away I would keep myself, I would find a way
He killed himself at the end of The Downward Spiral and now he regrets his decision.
@brentos37 GREAT INTERPRETATION... I’ve always vacillated between the notion of whether it was a deep examination of suicide or actually the actual moment of death. <br /> Your conclusion is brilliant and FINALLY gave me a plausible answer! Well done!
this song beautifully explores suicide. the lyrics and the music go together perfectly. the emotion is overwhelming. it almost hurts to listen to the song.
With the overwhelming monotony of his daily life, the realization that he is responsible for the decline of his own life, and the loss of his ability to lose himself through sex and control all collapsing in on our protagonist, he reaches the bottom of the spiral, hence the name. Here, his only mentality is that suicide is the only way to stop Mr. Self-Destruct/the Ruiner/himself from causing himself any more harm. The beautiful downward spiral motif heard periodically throughout the album culminates in the first moments of this song. Its no longer an ominous, impending cloud of doom; this time, that cloud has reached him. So he picks up a gun, puts it to his head, and pulls the trigger.
I've always imagined the part with the motif and the screaming and the lyrics to be that moment that he pulls the trigger and the bullet is going through his skull and then brain, his thoughts captured in super-slow motion. With one pull of the trigger (he couldn't believe how easy it was) he is done with what he believed to be his last option (problems do have solutions you know, a lifetime of fucking things up fixed) and there is no turning back (in one determined flash.) Finally, his mental pain numbs, the antagonistic Mr. Self-Destruct disappears, and everything spills out of his head. Only the other side of the spectrum, his humanity, his soul and essence that was long forgotten for the majority of the album, is left to ponder what he has just done to himself.
@HammerFloyd BRILLIANT
since the downward spiral has a story to it, would this song represent the suicide, with Hurt as some kind of epilogue, or is this only thoughts about it, with hurt being the actual event? i sure as hell dont know
have to notice the sarcasm in "problems do have solutions you know / a lifetime of fucking things up fixed in one determined flash"
Maybe the character doesn't kill himself, maybe he does. But this represents the metaphor of "suicide" either way.
i don't know, but i never really could see some kind of coherent story line, in spite of what i have heard. but... i actually did write a paper on this song (yeah, i know). anyhow, "so much blood..." is the realization of what he has done. "everything's blue" is about how painful living can be and how life can seem when you are so depressed. also is about how suicide is the only solution. now, the only part i've actually come up with an interestig analysis is "the deepest shade of mushroom blue." you know that when you touch a mushroom, it bruises, and the part where you touched it turns blue? well, it's kind of a metaphor for how the slightest thing you say or do can have a greater effect on someone else than you would even think. like some silly comment could push someone over the edge.
I do think that hurt is like an epilogue. I used to think that hurt was qwhen he actually killed himself because of the loud climax at the end, but now, I'm not so sure. It definately makes sense that this is when he actually kills himself, the screaming in the background is like his screraming voice inside his head, he knows what he has to do, and he does it, and the screaming stops.
I like the further down the spiral version of this song. Its kinda trippy.