"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.
Lately I've been wishing I had one desire
Something that would make me never want another
Something that would make it so that nothing matters
All would be clear then
But I guess I'll have to settle for a for a few brief moments
And watch all dissolve into a single second
And try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
Or one foolish line
Because that's all that you'll get so you'll have to accept
You are here and then you're gone
But I believe that lovers should be tied together and
Thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
And left there to drown
Left there to drown
In their innocence
But as for me I'm coming to the final chapter
I read all of the pages and there is still no answer
Only all that was before I know must soon come after
That is the only way it can be
So I stand in the sun
And I breathe with my lungs
Trying to spare myself the weight of the truth
Saying everything you have ever seen was just a mirror
And you've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever
And now you are laying ina bathtum full of freezing water
Wishing you were a ghost
But once you knew a girl and you named her lover
And danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summer
But autumn came, she disappeared
You don't remember where she said she was going to
But you know that she is gone because she left you a song
That you don't want to sing
We're singing I believe that lovers should be chained together
And thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
And left there to burn in their arrogance
But as for me I'm coming to my final failure
I've killed myself with changes trying to make it better
But I still ended up becoming something other than what I had planned to be
Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
And laid entwined together on a bed of clover
And left there to sleep
Left there to dream of their happiness
Something that would make me never want another
Something that would make it so that nothing matters
All would be clear then
But I guess I'll have to settle for a for a few brief moments
And watch all dissolve into a single second
And try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
Or one foolish line
Because that's all that you'll get so you'll have to accept
You are here and then you're gone
But I believe that lovers should be tied together and
Thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
And left there to drown
Left there to drown
In their innocence
But as for me I'm coming to the final chapter
I read all of the pages and there is still no answer
Only all that was before I know must soon come after
That is the only way it can be
So I stand in the sun
And I breathe with my lungs
Trying to spare myself the weight of the truth
Saying everything you have ever seen was just a mirror
And you've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever
And now you are laying ina bathtum full of freezing water
Wishing you were a ghost
But once you knew a girl and you named her lover
And danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summer
But autumn came, she disappeared
You don't remember where she said she was going to
But you know that she is gone because she left you a song
That you don't want to sing
We're singing I believe that lovers should be chained together
And thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
And left there to burn in their arrogance
But as for me I'm coming to my final failure
I've killed myself with changes trying to make it better
But I still ended up becoming something other than what I had planned to be
Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
And laid entwined together on a bed of clover
And left there to sleep
Left there to dream of their happiness
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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”
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
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.
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.
I personally think this song is about someone who really wants to fall in love but has been unsucessful. So he wants something else that's more attainable that he can control that will make him forget about wanting to fall in love. I think he bitterness and jealousy to people in love is he talkes about tying them together and throwing them in the ocean and then talks about chaining them together and throwing them into the fire left to burn in there arrogance. I think he feels like a outsider looking in. Feels like he's running out time.
This is the feeling I usually get when listening to this song so I agree with you
"I believe that lovers should be tied together And thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather And left there to drown Left there to drown in their innocence"
In Revolutionary France, a popular method of execution was tying a husband and wife together naked and then casting them into a river to drown.
very interesting that he draws on this.
to me, this song is about all of those who got away because i was too afraid to do anything, because i was too messed up in the head and depressed, because i had such a low self esteem. it reminds me of the time where i despised others who were in relationships and i couldn't understand why i couldn't join them. this song screams of all those years i was indulged in self-pity, depression, and pain.
I think he's tired of meaningless relationships and he's envious of lovers that last the tests of time. Cupid's arrows have had short lasting side-effects for him. Maybe he just longs for someone worth more than just one nice night, but instead a smattering of goodnights and good-byes leading to later hellos.
Since relationships have thunder; they're stormy, they're made of both joy and sadness, people give up. But he doesn't want to. And yet he does. It's simple to just skimper in the sunlight, keep things light because people's storms make people weary to wander -weary to love. So if you find desire, cling to it. Stay with it through the "worst of weather." -after the storm comes the calm. and in the end
True lovers should be draped in flowers. For they've made it through the tests of times.
i love this song so much. it makes me cry every time i listen to it... i love the "i believe that lovers should be..."
i felt this way during one of my nervous breakdowns
Every time I have a panic attack, I remember this song.
It's interesting that most people interpret these lyrics in a primarily romantic light, because I've always seen it as outlining the typical, torturous existential crisis: the speaker is struggling to accept the shortness of life and the eventual meaninglessness of it all. He's grasping onto the significance with dear life; that's the tremble in this man's voice. But the dynamic doesn't end there; it's rather ambivalent. Actual music-wise, the fluctuation in tempo and intensity really hint at Conor's quixotic attitude and frustration at the time of writing. He goes from "[watching] it all dissolve into a single second" and feeling quite dire to preaching to others that "[people are] here and then [they are] gone," as if he came to the conclusion without struggle. The cynicism is at its peak in the refraining periods; that's where all the bitter "I believe that..." lines are.
My favorite has always been:
"But as for me, I'm coming to the final chapter I read all of the pages and there's still no answer Only all that was before I know must soon come after That's the only way it can be."
The "final chapter" is in the book of wisdom and ultimate truth. The writer is complaining that he's been through all he can go through, "and there's still no answer," meaning an answer does not exist. The next lines, I think, allude to the life cycle of humans. The average person in the United States, by their time of death, may very well learn to walk twice, learn how to speak again or simply how to manage wearing diapers. So, no matter how many great things may occur in life, it all just amounts to, first, a "a single second" once we are soon to die, and now "a mirror" - everything that happens is only a reflection of one's self. We reap what we sow, and the speaker is frustrated because instead of spending time actually improving his life he sits around whining about the nature of the world: "...I still ended up becoming something other than what I planned to be."
Ultimately, some of the best, painfully infectious Bright Eyes lyrics ever. Some equivalents would be Lua, You! Will. and Bowl of Oranges.
This is how I'd write the lyrics; I daresay it can be arranged better than in the original post.
i feel this way exactlly a good portion of my life. Then conor just keeps bringing himself back.
i wonder who he wrote this about, or what inspired him to create this song? the pain in his voice... it makes me want to cry but the ending prevents me. its beautiful, for lack of a better word.