"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.
One of those fucking, awful black days
When nothing is pleasing and everything that happens
Is an excuse for anger
An outlet for emotions stockpiled, an arsenal, an armor
These are the days when I hate the world
Hate the rich, hate the happy
Hate the complacent, the TV watchers
Beer drinkers, the satisfied ones
Because I know I can be all of those little hateful things
And then I hate myself for realizing that
There's no preventative, directive or safe approach for living
We each know our own fate
We know from our youth, how to be treated
How we'll be received, how we shall end
These things don't change
You can change your clothes
Change your hairstyle, your friends, cities, continents
But sooner or later your own self will always catch up
Always it waits in the wings
Ideas swirl but don't stick
They appear but then run off like the rain on the windshield
One of those rainy day car rides, my head implodes
The atmosphere in this car, a mirror of my skull
Wet, damp, windows dripping and misted with cold
Walls of grey, nothing good on the radio, not a thought in my head
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
Lets take life and slow it down incredibly slow
Frame by frame
With two minutes that take ten years to live out
Yeah, let's do that
Telephone poles like praying mantis against the sky
Metal arms outstretched
So much land traveled, so little sense made of it
It doesn't mean a thing, all this land laid out behind us
I'd like to take off into these woods and get good and lost for a while
I'm disgusted with petty concerns
Parking tickets, breakfast specials
Does someone just have to carry this weight?
Abstract typography, methane covenant
Linear gospel, Nashville sales lady, stocky emissary
Torturous lice, mad Elizabeth
Chemotherapy bullshit
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
The light within you shines like a diamond mine
Like an unarmed walrus, like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a skunk, eating it's own tail
Steam turbine, frog farm
Two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun
Hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blow job
Deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories
Movements, the movie, unfeeling, unreeling, about to begin
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
I've seen your hallway, you're a darn call away
I've hear your stairs creak, I can fix my mind on your yes
And your no, I'll film your face today in the sparkling canals
All red, yellow, blue, green brilliance and silver Dutch reflection
Racing thoughts, racing thoughts, all too real
You're moving so fast now, I can't hold your image
This image I have of your face by the window
Me standing beside you, arm on your shoulder
A catalog of images, flashing glimpses then gone again
Untethered to the posters soak in me, every clear afternoon now
I'll think of you, up in the air, twisting your heel
Your knees up around me, my face in your hair
You scream so well, your smile so loud, it still rings in my ears
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
Imitation, distant, tired of longing, clean my teeth
Stay the course, hold the wheel, steer on to freedom
Open all the boxes, open all the boxes
Open all the boxes, open all the boxes
Times Square Midday, newspaper buildings
News headlines going around, you watch as they go
And hope there's some good ones, those tree shadows in the park
They're all whispering, shake some leaves
Around six p.m., shadows across the cobblestones
Girl in front of bathroom mirror, she slow and careful
Paints her face green and mask like
Like my cheese, portrait with green stripe
Long shot through apartment window
A monologue on top but no girl in shot
The light within me shines like a diamond mine
Like an unarmed walrus
Like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a snake eating its own tail
A steam turbine, frog pond
Two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun
Hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blow job
Deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories
Movements, the movie, unreeling, about to begin
Oh, great by me
Yeah? Mine were alright, wasn't my best one but who cares?
That's the spirit
When nothing is pleasing and everything that happens
Is an excuse for anger
An outlet for emotions stockpiled, an arsenal, an armor
These are the days when I hate the world
Hate the rich, hate the happy
Hate the complacent, the TV watchers
Beer drinkers, the satisfied ones
Because I know I can be all of those little hateful things
And then I hate myself for realizing that
There's no preventative, directive or safe approach for living
We each know our own fate
We know from our youth, how to be treated
How we'll be received, how we shall end
These things don't change
You can change your clothes
Change your hairstyle, your friends, cities, continents
But sooner or later your own self will always catch up
Always it waits in the wings
Ideas swirl but don't stick
They appear but then run off like the rain on the windshield
One of those rainy day car rides, my head implodes
The atmosphere in this car, a mirror of my skull
Wet, damp, windows dripping and misted with cold
Walls of grey, nothing good on the radio, not a thought in my head
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
Lets take life and slow it down incredibly slow
Frame by frame
With two minutes that take ten years to live out
Yeah, let's do that
Telephone poles like praying mantis against the sky
Metal arms outstretched
So much land traveled, so little sense made of it
It doesn't mean a thing, all this land laid out behind us
I'd like to take off into these woods and get good and lost for a while
I'm disgusted with petty concerns
Parking tickets, breakfast specials
Does someone just have to carry this weight?
Abstract typography, methane covenant
Linear gospel, Nashville sales lady, stocky emissary
Torturous lice, mad Elizabeth
Chemotherapy bullshit
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
The light within you shines like a diamond mine
Like an unarmed walrus, like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a skunk, eating it's own tail
Steam turbine, frog farm
Two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun
Hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blow job
Deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories
Movements, the movie, unfeeling, unreeling, about to begin
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
I've seen your hallway, you're a darn call away
I've hear your stairs creak, I can fix my mind on your yes
And your no, I'll film your face today in the sparkling canals
All red, yellow, blue, green brilliance and silver Dutch reflection
Racing thoughts, racing thoughts, all too real
You're moving so fast now, I can't hold your image
This image I have of your face by the window
Me standing beside you, arm on your shoulder
A catalog of images, flashing glimpses then gone again
Untethered to the posters soak in me, every clear afternoon now
I'll think of you, up in the air, twisting your heel
Your knees up around me, my face in your hair
You scream so well, your smile so loud, it still rings in my ears
I know a place we can go and I'm falling
Love so hard that you wish you were ten
Imitation, distant, tired of longing, clean my teeth
Stay the course, hold the wheel, steer on to freedom
Open all the boxes, open all the boxes
Open all the boxes, open all the boxes
Times Square Midday, newspaper buildings
News headlines going around, you watch as they go
And hope there's some good ones, those tree shadows in the park
They're all whispering, shake some leaves
Around six p.m., shadows across the cobblestones
Girl in front of bathroom mirror, she slow and careful
Paints her face green and mask like
Like my cheese, portrait with green stripe
Long shot through apartment window
A monologue on top but no girl in shot
The light within me shines like a diamond mine
Like an unarmed walrus
Like a dead man face down on the highway
Like a snake eating its own tail
A steam turbine, frog pond
Two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun
Hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blow job
Deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories
Movements, the movie, unreeling, about to begin
Oh, great by me
Yeah? Mine were alright, wasn't my best one but who cares?
That's the spirit
Lyrics submitted by PapaSlurp, edited by TheBowser, carsonalso, Carbonated Dan, Starkey
Be Safe Lyrics as written by Lee Ranaldo Gary John Jarman
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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“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 think this song expresses perfectly how you feel when you've been through something terrible that makes your whole life and the whole world seem meaningless and trivial. Being "disgusted with petty concerns", realising that it's actually all crap, that people put such importance on things that really don't matter.
"We each know our own faith" should be "We each know our own fate"
We all know how we shall end...we're going to die. None of these "petty concerns" will matter then, nothing like clothes, hairstyles or moving cities can change the reality of your self and your fate.
I like the line about the light within him shining like a diamond mine...it's sarcastic/ironic. A diamond mine is a dark and dangerous place where people are exploited and used as slaves...the diamonds do not shine at all within it.
My personal interpretation is that he's experienced the drawn-out death of his girlfriend through cancer (hence the line "chemotherapy bullsh*t", mistakenly written here as "keep a better peoples"). The seemingly random lists I think are fragments of memories of him and his girlfriend, good mixed with bad. They include "hospital death bed" "bleached white buildings" "deaths head". I think the words are an outburst of emotions he has kept buried, "stockpiled", about his loss. "Open all the boxes" could mean letting out his emotions and also creates an image of him going through/organising her belongings after she has died.
The words "Cleaning my teeth" portray to me that he is utterly fed up with and depressed by mundane routine of day-to-day life.
"untethered to this post" should be "I'm tethered to this post you've sunk in me"...I think meaning that he cannot forget her or move on.
@littlebea This is the best, most beautiful, heartbreaking, and most comprehensive interpretation that I've read. I can't imagine the author Lee Ranaldo was referring to anything else but even if he were, this would probably be a better meaning. Thank you.
this song is simple, it just about one of those days where you feel completely apathetic and separate from everyone else. Nothing seems to make an sense or have any significance but the next day you will wake up and feel completely normal.
there have been times where that describes me so well. I'll be alone and my head is just racing with nonsense, and I start to feel so alone and like I'm trapped in the rush of emotions or pain I know are not rational. Then I'll wake up and it's all gone.
Or maybe it's permanent...
i used to always skip this song when listening to the album
then i went to see them play at Leeds festival, and they played this, and i was so bloody amazed, they played the guys monologue on the big screen and everyone in the crowd just stood in awe at them. then when the chorus kicked in....thousands of people shouting "I know a place we can go where you'll fall in love so hard that you'll wish you were dead"
man moments like that stick with you
@freakystyley "The guy" is Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth
fucking brilliant... I think it has many interpretations one being cancer.. losing life
this song is gorgeous, and ryan's comments at the end are genius.
lee ranaldo's voice is awesome, especially backed up by the jarman chorus. shame they can't do this live, would make an amazing gig even better!
xxx
ive seen them do this live, they finished with it! lee ranaldo was on a video screen either side of the stage reciting it. one of the best moments of a gig ive ever experienced.
They did it live at the brudenell (on dvd) where i think th voice was taken straight off th album
I witnessed the same thing at Reading this year. It was not only the highlight of the gig, but possibly even the festival.
Just listened to this for the first time, it is amazing. Shows how such an already brilliant band have grown and improved! Can't really get my head round it though, and to be honest it makes my head hurt trying to make sense of all the (beautiful) lyrics here.
Its just so.. i dont know.. Intense
This has got to be my favourite from the album, and it definitely shows their improvement. This song live would probably complete my life.
the lyrics are all on the album.
bloody INCREDIBLE chorus.
(my need is slow but don't stick like //// //// //// //// like the rain on the windshield)
Ideas swirl but don't stick. They appear but then run off like rain on the windshield.
those tree shadows from the park that you're all whispering //// //// meanings around six pm
Those tree shadows in the park they're all whistling chasing leaves. Around six pm
Just listening to this and I haven't even got through it, but it reminds me of that song by Nada Surf. They didn't play this live when I saw them, I dunno how it would work really.