"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.
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
Oh, I've been watching the skies
They've been turning blood red
Not a doubt in my mind anymore
There's a storm up ahead
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
Oh (my love)
Oh
Everything I have I count as loss
Everything I have is stripped away
Before I started building
I counted up these costs
There's nothing left for you to take away
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
My love
I'm a fighter fighting for control
I'm a fighter fighting for my soul
Everything inside of me surrenders
You can't silence my love
Oh, oh, oh
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
My love
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
Oh, I've been watching the skies
They've been turning blood red
Not a doubt in my mind anymore
There's a storm up ahead
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
Oh (my love)
Oh
Everything I have I count as loss
Everything I have is stripped away
Before I started building
I counted up these costs
There's nothing left for you to take away
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
My love
I'm a fighter fighting for control
I'm a fighter fighting for my soul
Everything inside of me surrenders
You can't silence my love
Oh, oh, oh
Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love
My love
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More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
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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"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Jon Foreman- "This is a subject matter that I speak of with holy reverence. Having grown up on the East Coast I know firsthand of the houses lost, of the dreams turned into nightmares. I take my shoes off and recognize that this is a matter that is dear to our nation, especially of late- with every passing hurricane season. Last year, with Habitat for Humanity we helped to build a house for a woman who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane had taken her city, her house, and her leg. As she relocated to Baton Rouge and learned how to walk as an amputee, her mantra was this: "I walked out of my house and my life in New Orleans on my own legs, I'm going to walk into this one the same way." This is the spirit that I wanted to capture with this song, and moreover with this record. The storms of life might take my house, my loved ones, or even my life- but they cannot silence my love.
Yes, the reactionary impulses of hate, fear, and despair really are defenseless against the storms of this life. And yet, this selfless love really might be stronger than death. Perhaps, the kingdom of the heavens really is at hand, ready to give, ready to love. And with this love as my song I will overcome. In surrender to divine love I will find my strength. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love another."
What an awesome title track. Love conquers all. It won't be easy. You've got to fight. But weather the storm (physically and metaphorically), and be better and stronger because of it.
Below is a link of Jon talking specifically about this song:
examiner.com/x-11989-Nashville-Gospel-Music--Entertainment-Examiner~y2009m11d3-Switchfoots-lead-singer-Jon-Foreman-talks-about-Hello-Hurricane
Even if it wasn't written exactly to mean this, to me this song basically says when life gets tough we just need to keep loving God. Even when other people mock us for being Christians and despise us for our faith (the "hurricane"), we'll keep sharing His love... they can't silence us!
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." - Phillipians 3:8
"Everything I have I count as loss."
Jesus said people would get so bad that most people would stop loving God and each other (Matthew 24:12-13). It sounds like these guys see that time coming and have prepared for it. They have 'boarded up their doors and windows' by believing all the evidences of God's love in spite of what their feelings or current circumstances would lead them to believe. They have also given up ownership of evrything here on earth so that they can not be intimidated by the threat of loss. Great song.