"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.
I run the numbers through the floor
Here's how it goes
I crack the codes I crack the codes
That end the war
The Hour
I pushed a note under your door
Here's how it goes
Things come to blows
But we don't want this anymore
No, we don't want this anymore
I crack the codes you end the war
I hear the clockwork in your core
Time strips the gears till you
Forget what they were for
I push the numbers through your pores
I crack the codes I crack the codes
To end the war
How's my living
You can call
Encrypted numbers
On bathroom stalls
There's something burning
It casts a pall
It's melting numbers right
Off the walls
Here's how it goes
I crack the codes I crack the codes
That end the war
The Hour
I pushed a note under your door
Here's how it goes
Things come to blows
But we don't want this anymore
No, we don't want this anymore
I crack the codes you end the war
I hear the clockwork in your core
Time strips the gears till you
Forget what they were for
I push the numbers through your pores
I crack the codes I crack the codes
To end the war
How's my living
You can call
Encrypted numbers
On bathroom stalls
There's something burning
It casts a pall
It's melting numbers right
Off the walls
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Just a starting point, this was initially a song by Martin Dosh. It appears on his album Wolves and Wishes as "First Impossible." (Same kind of deal with Simple X on Armchair Apocrypha)
As for the meaning of this song, I had no clue until I read the (amazing) article about Andrew Bird in The New York Times Magazine. It says that this song is a break-up song. Andrew had recently broken up with a significant other when he wrote it. I suppose we can assume the "war" is the mess that was the end of the relationship. The rest of the lines fall into place fairly easily given the break-up context.
The article also mentions the source of the title: After the relationship was over, Andrew was unhappy and in a "robot" like state. However, when he heard a beautiful song, he no longer felt like a robot, but a ghost. The article doesn't mention Dosh's infuence on the song, but it fits perfectly - Andrew was in a "robot-like" state, and heard Dosh's song "First Impossible" and it eradicated him of that feeling, leaving him to feel like a ghost.
"I hear the clockwork in your core time strips the gears till you forget what they were for"
In the context of this being a break up song, the above lines kind of feel like a reference to a biological imperative to reproduce. Maybe Bird wanted kids and his partner didn't, or vice versa. Clockwork in your core = biological clock...
just a thought
I think there's definitely something to that, although not necessarily in terms of wanting children... just the idea of a body and its physical desires as a clockwork mechanism, and with the gears being worn down by time and use so that you get to the point where you're just going through the motions without really feeling anything, or knowing why you're doing it. It could refer to sexuality, or just the state of being in a romantic relationship. Either way, it fits with the overall theme of the breakup song.
That's what I related that bit of song to.
Whenever I hear that line, I automatically think of how people feel right after a breakup, like how a lot of people say "I'll never love again, etc.." I hear the clockwork in your core, time strips the gears till you forget what they were for makes me think of the heart, and how after a while you kind of just wanna forget about heart break and love all together. Or, you know, something along those lines.
I find it hard to believe this song isn't at least partly an allusion to Alan Turing who cracked German codes in WWII to end the war. He was later convicted by the British govt. for being a homosexual and then killed himself with a poisoned apple. (Sleeping Beauty was apparently his favorite fairy tale.)
My mind went to Turing at first too. It makes a lot of sense as a break up song, as well, but yeah, Turing's homosexuality fits perfectly in the second half of this song, especially as he was such a hero, and then they convicted and chemically castrated him. Relating the first part to him just being a code cracker, then his gears wearing down as he's trying to hide his homosexuality, and the "hows my living?" stanza being about him trying to covertly let out his secret, but it eventually "casting a pall" as people hear and reject him totally.
That was also my interpretation. Back in the day, a "computer" was a person rather than a machine. Some have suggested that Turing's work connected with his struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, leading him to identify people with automatons. It's so hard to ever interpret every line of a song like this, and once I had that theory, more and more of it seemed to make sense.
I've been reading a lot of Neal Stephenson lately, and this song definitely reminded me of Turing and cryptanalysis too.<br /> I just finished reading The Diamond Age, and there's one part where the protagonist has to figure out how to reprogram this huge castle that is a Turing machine via binary chains that program the robot ruler so she can escape. The chains run through the floor and walls of the castle. If it is a breakup song, I can understand the feeling of the same kind of prison that you can only escape through some heavy, intense thought; a type of puzzle so difficult that you're not sure if you'll ever be able to figure it out.
This is one of those songs who meaning shan't be extrapolated via line-by-line analysis, but by the overall landscape being sculpted. To me, this song paints the picture of a complex machine which computes information. This machine is personified as the robot, a person who lives mechanically by 1's and 0's, never showing behavior that extends beyond its simple programming (the mental-emotional loops established from growing up).
The ghost is the antithesis to this, it is the speaker of a song who has cracked the code, who has eradicated your previous logical format for existence, thus ended the war of internal suffering, and melted the such a restricted way of looking at things.
spot on
“Not a Robot, But a Ghost,” on “Noble Beast.” It’s a breakup song, anchored in the disconnected feeling Bird experienced after the end of his most recent relationship — or more specifically, how he felt when he heard a powerful piece of music while in the throes of that post-breakup funk: having been moved by the music, he no longer felt like a robot, but he still felt like a ghost." NYT Mag 1/4/09.
Just to elborate on the above note. Thanks for the mention of the article. :(
Ah-- that fugue state that exists when you are so tired and broken by a breakup, and how music can help you connect the dots back to some newer, different version of yourself. Not to ever be the same specifically, you have to create some newer form of self from the experience. For me, the song was the Bends by Radiohead. I have to say, the whole article just made my heart break for him.
AS PER THE LYRICS BOOKLET: it is "how's my LIVING, you can call"
and when he sings all high-pitched, he's singing "the hour"
Thanks!
Right. As far as the "encrypted numbers on bathroom stalls," I suppose that would be people leaving comments on his life, just like in the Measure for Measure blog.
I think school must have ruined my brain, because when I hear this song, I only think about computers during WWII. The Colossus was a code breaker used by the British to defeat Germany's Enigma...it fits in my head, at least :)
I think of that too! Although I only thought of the Enigma.
Perhaps it a double meaning :)
Ha, you're not the only one. I have convinced myself that this song is about Alan Turing:<br /> <br />
too good
Anybody got a clue as to the actual line preceding "you can call / encrypted numbers / on bathroom stalls"? All I could hear was "How's my view and" and I'm almost certain that's not what's he saying.
It is How's my View.<br /> <br /> Listening to the NPR chat, he spoke about his blogging on the NYT Measure for Measure blog, and some critques he had been getting there about what he should do, and how he felt like, this is just me living and it reminded him of those bumper stickers on the back of trucks that say "How's my driving? You can call 1-800..."