"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.
Take your mind back, I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
And boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you
What's a man now, what's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change, it's got to change more
Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
See the nice boys, dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight, straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine
You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend
So don't call me a fagot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall and handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
Time to get scared, time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit, what you call defeat
Cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet
Man makes a gun, man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds
And if there's war between the sexes
Then there'll be no people left
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
And boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you
What's a man now, what's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change, it's got to change more
Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
See the nice boys, dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight, straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine
You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend
So don't call me a fagot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall and handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
Time to get scared, time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit, what you call defeat
Cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet
Man makes a gun, man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds
And if there's war between the sexes
Then there'll be no people left
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
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.
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.
I can offer another explanation for the rugby reference on the Live album. Joe was playing in Sydney at the time and the Wallabies had just won an important match. The song is about gender ambiguities ("See the nice boys... All the gays are macho...") It has often been said that rugby (and other team-based contact sports) are an outlet for the homosexual feelings of those macho types who absolutely cannot bear to even consider that they might have homosexual leanings. They can get close to one another, touch, hug (after scoring tries/goals). So Joe was basically taking the piss by dedicating this song to the Wallabies... a clever, ironic comment.
I think mellisande is right about what the song is actually about - Joe isn't saying that society is changing for the worse, not exactly. He's simply saying that traditional roles are breaking down. The whole song is ironic - it is sung from the point of view of a super-straight, conservative man, at least initially. Hence the "us and them" and the "girls that wore pink, boys that wore blue" in the first verse. Then you have the disapproving-sounding second verse. But at the end, the sting in the tail comes - "Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds, and if it's war between the sexes then there'll be no people left". That's the real message - artificial, arbitrary divisions and categorisation (like man / woman, gay / bi / straight, black / white) will kill us all. This is a theme running through Joe Jackson's work - that we are all human beings, and we should try to get along as such, not put any other characteristic first. See also "It's different for girls" and "One to one", among others.
I will take a guess at the rugby reference - in the early to mid 1980s, the Aussie rugby team was noted for playing an attractive style of rugby dominated by flashy back play. The backs tend to be the less ugly ones. I heard a rumour that one of the young Aussie backs at the time, Michael Liner, was gay. What I know of Joe Jackson is entirely gleaned from his songs and for me this just doesn't fit as a gay anthem or an anti-gay anthem. It is clearly about confused emotional feelings, something that he wrote about well and often. I would disagree with the view that he saw the view of real men as that changing for the worse and becoming less chivalrous. I think the song is about growing up and coping with a world where feelings become more and more complex. It is the ambiguouty of the lyric that makes this song work.
this song reflect sthe confusion many people feel when they view modern society as opposed to the old attitudes about what made someone a man. Basically, it's saying who decides what makes someone a man and who gave them that right?
Much love for this song!
Anyone who looks at these lyrics and thinks the song is -supporting- and not -mocking- homophobia needs to get their head examined. Also Tori Amos' cover of this is actually how I first became aware of this song...
"You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend... so don't call me a faggot not unless you are a friend." - It's only a joke if I know you, like how a laid back black friend might let his white friends call him "nigguh" but if someone he doesn't know says it, or some genuine racist says it with genuine malice behind it, then it's a different story.
i absolutely cant believe no one has commented on this song. I have a live version from his album 'live 80-86' he dedicates the song to the Australian Rugby team. Does anyone know what significance the wallabies have to this song?
this song is about being gay ( male or female). I have no idea what the reference to that rugby team is....
This is a powerful song, and I highly recommend you see the video. I've seen it numerous times on VH1 Classics.
This song is about how society is changing men for the worse. Joe Jackson was observing that even back in 1982 society was destroying traditional notions about what it means to be a "real man", and I appreciate his anger at the situation. If you've seen the video you'd understand. Although he mentions gays in the song it is by no means about gays (male or female) at all - sorry.
Rather, the protagonist in the video is a chivalrous idealist who grows up watching old movies of Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and James Dean. The first scene shows him as a child as he rescues a girl from a pack of bullies. Later he is shown as a teenager with a girlfriend (maybe the same girl from the first scene), however she is cold and distant from him because society no longer sees him as a "real man". As they drive along he passes by two gay men and is bewildrered and struggles with these changes. In the end she ends up going to a bar and hooks up with the same bullies that abused her as a child because they are "real men". Brokenhearted and angry he ends up driving his car off a cliff a-la James Dean who also died in a car crash. Thus symbolizing the death of the traditional notion that a "real man" is chivalrous.
Twenty five years later we have to ask ourselves - what is a "real man"?
re: "This song is about how society is changing men for the worse."<br /> I think you've got it dead wrong.<br /> Jackson questions whether Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and James Dean are valid role models for men in the video.<br /> Without the video, the song on its own, the tone of voice with which he sings can best be described as "bitter"; and questions whether being the kind of "real man" people think of when people think of real men is actually an authentic (real) man at all.
"fuck hate" is a waay better motto than think peace. some ad person get some bumper stickers made pronto!
this song is kind of sad to me! but, i DO know some real men. they have blown my mind. they DO exist. and they love their women.
i'm okay with loving a not so "real" man and many, many completely real men. it's all goood. :-)