"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.
She will kiss you til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing oh Kentucky why did you forsake me
It I was meant to sail the sea
Why did you make me
It should have been another state
Oh stay
Cause Mary Anne's a bitch
Mary Anne's a bitch
Does it matter that our anchor
Couldn't even reach the bottom of a bathtub
And the sails reflect the moon
It's such a strange job
Playing blackjack on the deck
Still
Atop this giant puddle
Dressed in white we quietly huddle with our missiles
And we miss the girls back home
Oh home sweet home
Cause Mary Anne's a bitch
Mary Anne's a bitch
She will kiss you til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing oh Kentucky why did you forsake me
It I was meant to sail the sea
Why did you make me
It should have been another state
Oh stay
Cause Mary Anne's a bitch
Mary Anne's a bitch
Does it matter that our anchor
Couldn't even reach the bottom of a bathtub
And the sails reflect the moon
It's such a strange job
Playing blackjack on the deck
Still
Atop this giant puddle
Dressed in white we quietly huddle with our missiles
And we miss the girls back home
Oh home sweet home
Cause Mary Anne's a bitch
Mary Anne's a bitch
She will kiss you til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
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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”
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.
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.
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.
Some how, I don't think Maryanne is either a boat or a woman, but the sea itself.
"kisses you till your lips bleed" - reference to the wind?
And she's a bitch because all those sailor's want to go back to their woman; but she wont let them.
"She won't take her dress off." She's just a tease; she promises that this is worth it but doesn't quite make it okay that they can't see their girlfriends.
To meeee....
This song is about the USS Kentucky -- a ship that was built but never completed in the WW2 era.
"does it matter that our anchors couldnt even reach the bottom of a bath tub"
means she was never completed
"it's such a strange job, playing black jack on the deck" I think this is about the skeleton crew than manned the Kentucky before she was dismantled in 1958. They sat atop their puddle, dressed in white...they missed the girls back home...
"If I was meant to sail the seas...why did you make me?" obviously a jab at the military for giving them such a terrible duty station.
And Marianne...of course, is the Sea.
I believe the Tropicana is either a hot spot in Philly, where she was moored until she was scrapped, or a heartfelt wish from the crew...When they signed up to be in the NAVY, they were told they would sail everywhere, even to Tropicana...but instead they were stuck...AMERICANA!
I love this song.
Elephantine idiot! How could I have been — why do I continue to be — so stupid! "Mare", Latin, meaning "sea" or "ocean". From which, or relatives thereof, come the English words "marine" and "marina". Furthermore, the Russian for "sea" is also море (morye). Anyway, what does it matter? Most of her songs, with the exception perhaps of "Machine", don't have clear, definite meaning anyway, even to her! She confessed as much in that interview with . . . whatever the name of that magazine is; I can't remember.
its americana, tropicana. Americana, as in the American lifestyle. Tropicana, as in Regina's awesome.
I found it gratifying to think of "Mary Anne" as "Marianne," related to the French personification of liberty, and in that context she's saying, in effect, "Freedom is a bitch." It seemed to jive profoundly enough with the rest of the song.
I'm liking a lot of these observations. When I listen to this song I hear a lot of cold war motif. Let's say we have A) cold war as the macrocosm/backdrop, B)The experience of horny sea men cruising the Caribbean as the, you know, human sized cosm, C) And the condition and of sperm in waiting ... All of this pins together with the line, "Still, atop these giant puddles/dressed in white we quietly huddle with our missiles." The apprehensive mentality of the cold war is compared to the condition of being horny as fuck. What do the cold war and the condition of being a horny homesick sailor have in common? They are both basically about waiting to anxiously to blow your load.
The last minute where she's singing "Americana, Tropicana," the tone changes almost drastically from upbeat/flirty to something more haunting and foreboding... echoing the ambiguity of our cliffhanger ending: a bunch of horny men with various unconscious Freudian phallic issues hold the fait our world in their hands.
and the two are states are one and the same in song of these sailors
this song is--- greattt.
haha love the meaning for tropicana.
i think its interesting how she mentions Marry Anne from her other song...im not sure what the significance is tho.