"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.
Typing letters to the dead
Late at night on a closed piano lid
She circles past She fills your glass
But she don’t recognise the song
And once in a life time she says
“The waking life
Stitched together in your head
Well, what if it’s only worth
The bundle of nerves it’s written on?”
And I don’t need these arms anymore
I don’t need this heart, now to love
I don’t need this skin and bones
At all
There’s a way you’ve always known her
Telephone between her cheek and her shoulder
And eyes like crystal balls
That just won’t shutup
About the future of the future
Ramona was a waitress
All but made of information
In a bar under the third bridge
She says she’s looking forward
To living forever
And I won’t need these arms anymore
I won’t need this heart, not alone
I won’t need this skin and bones
At all
At all, at all, at all, at all, at all
Ramona was a waitress x 3
Late at night on a closed piano lid
She circles past She fills your glass
But she don’t recognise the song
And once in a life time she says
“The waking life
Stitched together in your head
Well, what if it’s only worth
The bundle of nerves it’s written on?”
And I don’t need these arms anymore
I don’t need this heart, now to love
I don’t need this skin and bones
At all
There’s a way you’ve always known her
Telephone between her cheek and her shoulder
And eyes like crystal balls
That just won’t shutup
About the future of the future
Ramona was a waitress
All but made of information
In a bar under the third bridge
She says she’s looking forward
To living forever
And I won’t need these arms anymore
I won’t need this heart, not alone
I won’t need this skin and bones
At all
At all, at all, at all, at all, at all
Ramona was a waitress x 3
Lyrics submitted by EmotionSickness13, edited by NegativeSteve
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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"
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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.
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.
I think conceptually this song is about robots and the future, the conversation with a robot in a bar or whatever Paul Dempsey himself said. That said, I think there is a more personal theme running through the song, certain lines make me think he's referring to the "feeling" of having a long distance relationship via webcam.
I think this is the emotional root of the song, the robots and stuff about the future and mortality were possibly added later to make the lyrics richer and the themes more complex; in my view it's a beautiful song about a fleeting long-distance relationship.
The last chorus lyrics are wrong!! When i won't need these arms anymore When i won't need this heart now to love I won't need this skin and bones
I think the song is about dying and going to heaven. Living forever, the future....
I interpret it as about a stranger, Ramona, who committed suicide.
My favourite part;
"The waking life, stitched together in your head Well, what if it's only worth the bundle of nerves it's written on?"
Love this song. <3
Isn't this song about robots? Or a conversation with a robot about the meaning of life or something? Regardless, wicked song, not usually a fan but this song is way to good not to like
It's about a guy having an argument with a robot about immortality. The 'Ramona' comes from an actual artificial intelligence project by the same name aimed at making a robot near human and reaching consciousness. Very weird topic, really like the song a lot though, especially the line 'but she don't recognise the song'
lawl.
i was pretty off then.
but regardless, it's a good song.
I saw him in concert, and before he sang this he said that its dedicated to a special girl who will remain young forever...
I think this is a beautiful song. Not sure what its about, the robot theory makes sense though.
From the mouth of Mr Dempsey from a Jmag interview: "So this guy walks into a bar... and he sits down to have a stiff drink and he gets locked in conversation with this waitress who is actually like a 'human version 2.0' or something like that, and they start talking about love and life and death and all sorts of serious crap, except the conversation kinda starts to fall apart a bit because he's really neurotic and worried about mortality and the meaning of life etc. and she just isn't really on the same wavelength because she's like a semi-artifical intelligence in a semi-biological body and she just kinda 'upgrades' and never really has to die and... I don't know what it means but it feels right to me."
First of all i think Ramona is dead. And i believ she's a specific person he met but representative of many people like her who live a life of struggles. She works at a late night bar/diner, always talks about all her thousands of future dreams but is really a scarred person who dies a waitress in a crappy bar. It's pessimistic but that was my interpretation.