"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.
Two-three-four, oh
Gloria, oh, oh
And I try to sing this song, I
I try to stand up
But I can't find my feet
I try, I try to speak up
But only in you I'm complete
Gloria in te domine
Gloria exultate
Gloria, Gloria
Oh Lord, loosen my lips, loosen my
And I try to sing this song, I
I try to get in
But I can't find the door
The door is open
You're standing there
You let me in
Gloria in te domine
Gloria exultate
Oh Lord, if I had anything
Anything at all, I'd give it to you
I, I'd give it to you, to you
Give it to you
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Hey, this is Red Rocks
Adam Clayton
This is The Edge
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, [?]
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, gloria
Gloria, [?]
Gloria, [?]
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, gloria
Gloria, oh, oh
And I try to sing this song, I
I try to stand up
But I can't find my feet
I try, I try to speak up
But only in you I'm complete
Gloria in te domine
Gloria exultate
Gloria, Gloria
Oh Lord, loosen my lips, loosen my
And I try to sing this song, I
I try to get in
But I can't find the door
The door is open
You're standing there
You let me in
Gloria in te domine
Gloria exultate
Oh Lord, if I had anything
Anything at all, I'd give it to you
I, I'd give it to you, to you
Give it to you
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Hey, this is Red Rocks
Adam Clayton
This is The Edge
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, [?]
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, gloria
Gloria, [?]
Gloria, [?]
Gloria in te domine
Gloria, gloria
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
Gloria Lyrics as written by Dave Evans Adam Clayton
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
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.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
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.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
I don't usually argue for the sake of it, so trust me when I say that I'm not contridicting you all for fun. But I disagree. I don't think that the song Gloria is about God at all. Sorry. I think that Bono is trying to show the magnitude of his love by comparing "Gloria," (the pseudonym name for the woman he loves, Eli, maybe?) to his love for God. You may think I'm mental, but Bono could have used another word besides "Gloria" in there, or even another Latin phrase. Just listen to it and think, it could either be a ballad for God, or someone that he truely loves.
@animavox Many great love songs are like that. Depict love for another through the perceived eyes of God, or by seeing God in another, and the love is depicted as pure and grand as it can be.
The Edge does beautiful slide here. I love the bass, the vocals, everything here. Lovely lyrics, and great example of how awesome U2 were when they were young guys.
I first heard this song back in '82 when I was 14 and have been a U2 fan ever since, for obvious reasons. Even back then I remember thinking that Bono's vocal performance on this track sounded very "sexual"... But as a Catholic schoolgirl I also "got" the religious references in the song, ex: "Gloria" meaning "glory to God".
IMO the two approaches seemed very dichotomous, at least until recently when I read Niall Stokes' book Into the Heart. To quote Bono: "It is a love song. In a sense it is an attempt to write about a woman in a spiritual sense and about God in a sexual sense. But there certainly is a strong sexual pulse in there".
This may not be as bizarre as it sounds. Most of Bono's life-defining events happened within a short space of only a year or two (losing his mother in sudden and tragic circumstances; finding God; joining a rock band, meeting his future-wife Ali) so they are probably all intrinsically linked in his mind/heart.
I think, as many of U2's songs are, Gloria is about many things at once. On the surface, on one level, it is about religion and the kind of sudden exultant understanding that can come with it, but also about the similar conveyances of that feeling, through music and through love, and through life in general. I think mainly this song is about religion, but also about a general wonder at the world, the beauty of its order and chaos and of the human interaction and capacity for feeling within and belief.
This seems to be many times an overlooked song, perhaps because it isn't played very much anymore. It had a powerful impact on me and is a powerfully expressive song, as U2's songs tend to be. I think there's a quote somewhere that they are "the band who never has any trouble expressing how they feel"...'Gloria', through Bono's vocals, Edge's guitar, and through the energy in the song, all of which shape the incredible wonderment and amazement that seems to permeate the music, carries so much and so completely the ideas behind it that perhaps even without words it is a translation of this feeling.
I imagine a Catholic boy in love for the first time. He has no words to describe it except those of religious ecstasy.
U2 never had a "religious period". They're just a group of guys of varying levels of religiosity which is used to inform their artwork from time to time.
i suppose it's to be expected that some will try to elevate a song with gasp LATIN VERSES, to validate their own beliefs or, at least, claim Bono as one of their own, but sometimes, a cigar IS just a cigar.
Rather than a self-congratulatory paen to Catholicism or faith, "Gloria" is actually simpler and more clever: It's about a guy in love with a woman he calls Gloria. She's so perfect, so unassailable, that he's deified her and is singing about his attraction to her as something akin to religious reverence. The name, Gloria, either real or a pseudonym fits perfectly for his worship of this new god.
So, no, this wasn't written to quell sectarian tensions in Ireland, as part of a larger "period" in U2's evolution (pun intended), or to satisfy Bono's craving to exalt the idea of faith.
He had fallen for someone.
Hard.
well it likes a worship song to God...he is singing part of a clasic hymn with a lil extra of his own... works great...should be more than 1 post on here tho....
IN TE DOMINE, in latin, means IN TIME O'LORD
"In te domine" literally means "in you, lord".
(translation: glory in you God, exulted glory)
Thanks to my friend for that. :)