"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.
And this is the house where I
I feel alone
Feel alone now
And this is the house where I
Could be unknown
Be alone now
Soon the waves and I found the rolling tide
Soon the waves and I found the rip tide
This is the house where I
I feel alone
Feel alone now
And this is the house where I
Could be unknown
Be alone now
Soon the waves and I found the rolling tide
Soon the waves and I found the rip tide
I feel alone
Feel alone now
And this is the house where I
Could be unknown
Be alone now
Soon the waves and I found the rolling tide
Soon the waves and I found the rip tide
This is the house where I
I feel alone
Feel alone now
And this is the house where I
Could be unknown
Be alone now
Soon the waves and I found the rolling tide
Soon the waves and I found the rip tide
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Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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.
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.
I got the feeling that this song is about being okay about being alone. It is a bit melancholy but the feeling the repetitive, rhythimic beat you could almost bear your chest swaying to the "waves" as described by the song. The waves that could lift you, be it what you may enjoy, it kinda says to me, that no matter what we die alone. It's okay, we're all trying to bear the loneliness by riding on waves. Trends, joining the latest crowd. This whole oceanic feeling of being connected to others is what we all loved to part of. Yet, It say's ride the wave, whatever you'd find and just enjoy. It's okay to be alone, but not necessarily hostile to others.
Give me some feedback..I hope this song get's more comments. This was my first favorite song off the new album. Twitter: @Neskrov.
<br /> I came, I saw, I conquered. me, myself, and I<br /> <br /> <br /> well said.
@theDrunkPianist I believe you are right on target. I was puzzled by the lyrics and typed in a search and came up with yours. Very insightful and well written. Yes, we die alone after riding the waves of life to enter the great mystery of the oceanic, cosmic unknown.
@theDrunkPianist thanks for sharing. I think you were right, cause it moved something into my chest while reading it.
@theDrunkPianist thanks for sharing. I think you were right, cause it moved something into my chest while reading it.
This sounds so sad, lonely, abandoned. I think it's the kind of sadness where you just want to die, so he leaves the house where he's now lonely and alone to head into the rolling water where he can get caught up in a rip (rest in peace?) tide and carried away out to sea. A beautiful song.
Both lyrically and musically, the best song on the album. I identify with it and maybe interpret it as such, but I get the feeling of revisiting "home" after many years. It's the feeling you get when, after leaving the place where you grew up for several years, you come "home" to find the place only vaguely familiar, and find the loneliness that comes with being somewhere where you only know a few people, as most of your old friends have either drifted away or moved on with their lives. I would get a minor sense of it when I lived overseas and would return over the summer, and then would return again after moving away after college (now there's virtually no connection), but someone recently related it well to me, telling the story of going into a bar in their relatively small hometown and finding that they knew no one there, and that was the sign that this was no longer their "home" but, instead, just a place that they knew, as if it were a place where they had never lived but only knew it from visits. There's a peaceful loneliness at these vaguely nostalgic and vaguely comforting places, and that's what I think this song is talking about. The "house" is a somewhat literal "home" reference, while the "rolling tide" is the general flow of life and moving on.
This song means the world to me. I love Beirut because I love how you can take the words into your own interpretation and just connect to it so deeply. And it’s more than just the words it’s the movement and the feeling of the music. To me, The Rip Tide is about feeling at peace with being alone. I am so passionate about music but I’ve never really had many friends who share that passion with me and this song just pours all of those feelings out for me... because yes, I do feel alone and misunderstood but I also tend to embrace that feeling of loneliness because it’s what makes me me and I am proud of my individuality. I’ve learned to be content with that feeling of loneliness...
The song is about Condon's realization that his life was no longer in his control and that it's time for him to settle down instead of living out of hotels.
From : npr.org/2011/09/10/140318038/beirut-a-jet-setter-settles-down
"Now 25, Condon has just released Beirut's latest album, The Rip Tide. The title comes from an experience Condon had on the road in Brazil last summer — though, for once, it had nothing to do with the local music.
"During a quiet moment at the beach between shows, a rip tide took me out pretty far — I was struggling to get back in," he says. "As I came back in, a wave crushed me and actually punctured a hole in my eardrum.
"It just got me thinking: These last five years of my life, me and everyone I'm close to have all been taken by this bigger force that's mostly out of our control," he says. "And I spent the rest of the year trying to find a home and settle down. I'd spent too many years living out of a suitcase. I guess calling [the album] The Rip Tide was saying goodbye to that sort of lifestyle.""
There are no words to describe my feelings when I listen to this song, it's just so damn perfect, man. And I think the reason why it's so perfect is because its lyrics are so simple, so repetitive, yet the meaning still resonates deeper than you can imagine. So, the literal meaning would probably be this: in some random interview I came across a couple of days ago, zach Condon said he wrote this album when he finally felt like he settled somewhere for the first time in his life after his adventure in Europe (where beiruts previous albums were written in). And this song and the central meaning of the entire album is about just that, finding the rip tide and just finally finding a true home. I'm pretty sure he settled in new York, and that's where the song "east Harlem" comes from, which is also from this album. However, I'm pretty sure Zach Condon nor most artists want the lyrics of a song to be confined to their own personal experiences, but instead want the listeners to relate to the lyrics in their own unique way--that's why most lyrics are so obscure. So, I feel like it's especially important to make your own personal meaning when listening to this song, since the lyrics are so open-ended. Mine would be feeling like I've finally found an internal meaning or purpose in life. When he talks about feeling alone in a house, I personally take it as a non-literal manner since I literally do feel alone everyday since my sister left for college this year. And, you know I have a history of chronic depression and I have been feeling down for a while now. But when I first listened to this song and felt his vocals just seep deep inside of me, I felt an odd peace of some kind, like I knew something more. And that's what the rip tide is for me, that internal place of knowing. but that's just me.
also, on a side note, I'm pretty sure some of lyrics are wrong: it's supposed to be "so the waves and i....." not "soon the waves and i....''
i always thought that the lyrics were "sound the waves...". am i the only one who has thought this?
So the waves and I.. Surely??
This is a song about finding respite from show business and newfound fame. He's taking a break from the riptide of fame that's sucked him and his "soundwaves" out among the sea of fans.
After reading the definition of a "rip tide" I wonder if subconsciously Condon wasn't in some ways struggling with his newfound need to settle down. As Dictionary.com describes it, "a stretch of turbulent water in the sea, caused by the meeting of currents or abrupt changes in depth", could be interpreted as a conflict between the paths that two (or more) of his inner drives have been taking (e.g. fame vs. creativity). This collision of forces then may have left him feeling helpless to choose either one, resulting in the somewhat calming sense of letting the flow take him where it may.