"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'm gonna tell my son to grow up pretty as the grass is green
And whip-smart as the English Channel's wide
And I'm gonna tell my son to keep his money in his mattress
And his watch on any hand between his thighs
And I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower
Till I write my whole life story on the back of his big brown eyes
When they do the double dutch, that's them dancing [Repeat: x4]
I'm gonna tell my son to join a circus so that death is cheap
And games are just another way of life
And I'm gonna tell my son to be a prophet of mistakes
Because for every truth there are half a million lies
And I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower
Till he learns to let his hair down far enough to climb outside
When they do the double dutch, that's them dancing [Repeat: x4]
And whip-smart as the English Channel's wide
And I'm gonna tell my son to keep his money in his mattress
And his watch on any hand between his thighs
And I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower
Till I write my whole life story on the back of his big brown eyes
When they do the double dutch, that's them dancing [Repeat: x4]
I'm gonna tell my son to join a circus so that death is cheap
And games are just another way of life
And I'm gonna tell my son to be a prophet of mistakes
Because for every truth there are half a million lies
And I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower
Till he learns to let his hair down far enough to climb outside
When they do the double dutch, that's them dancing [Repeat: x4]
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I'm surpassed no one commented on this song. I like the second verse the best! I wish may parents were this cool. How she wants her son to let his hair down and will tell him all the things she did wrong in her life but also expects him to make mistakes. It's like she is warning him about all the hardships of life in one song.
i think liz said the thing about the hair because it has a lot to do with rupunzel, which is a very sexual story and she wants her son to have sex a lot.
ewwww yo mamma what the fuck no................................i like repunzelEED's coemment better haha. i think its about her waiting to watch her song grow up or something
I was just kidding. ha! But this is how I want to raise my son!!
To me, it seems to be about a jaded woman who doesn't want her son to approach life with rose-colored glasses.
I think 7daysatsea has it right. This can't be a woman who is too caring, because of the line "And I'm gonna tell my son to join a circus so that death is cheap and games are just another way of life." She is already foreseeing her son's death as cheap and saying that life is game. Perhaps the conception of the son was not pleasant, the idea of a child is not comforting.
Liz once said that this song was about deception. It's actually a feminist song that uses the idea of Rapunzel. She said, "I'm sort of switching it around and locking up a boy in the castle instead of a girl. It's sort of like saying you should go through some of the experiences... like if I had a son, I would raise him to understand what it is like to be a girl. (...) I use a lot of fancy images just trying to say that if men knew what it was like to be a woman, the world would be a better place."