Fast Car (Wyclef Jean feat. Paul Simon)

[Note to Readers: This is a 2007 track that was co-written by Simon. With most such collaborations, I assume that Simon is the primary songwriter, and that he has invited others to work on the track with him-- to add their expertise in a particular genre, language, etc. In other words, they are collaborating with him.

With this song-- which appears on Wyclef Jean's album Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant-- the primary songwriter seems, to me, to be the same as its primary singer, Jean. The song is attributed to seven songwriters, including both Simon and Jean; Wikipedia lists Jean first... and Simon fourth. So here, he seems to be collaborating with them.

On the one hand, how much input could one writer have among seven? On the other, if that one is Paul Simon, would the others second-guess or gainsay him? Even so, Simon does not seem to be the type to be an ungracious guest, and would likely allow his host's literary voice to be the most prominent.

When I sub-titled this blog "more or less," I mean that the list of songs discussed would be as comprehensive as possible, knowing that "every single song" was a very intense promise. I did not mean that the songs would be "more or less" his. But here we are, and this song, while certainly weighing in on the "less" side, is a Paul Simon song, and so we're going to discuss it.]

"Fast Car" was already the title of another song; it's the one that put Tracy Chapman on the map back in 1988. It went to #6 and received two Grammy nominations (it lost Song of the Year to "Don't Worry, Be Happy.")

Wyclef's song is full of many other references as well. Even before the song starts, Wyclef mentions "Jersey Boys," the musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In the first line, he mentions Kanye West's song "Jesus Walks" from 2004. He then compares Kanye's being revived after being in a coma-- after his 2002 car accident-- to Jesus' rising from the dead.

This introduces the image of a "fast car," as in the one whose crash Kanye survived.

In the next verse, Wyclef mentions two movies starring Will Smith--  Wild Wild West (itself a reimagining of a TV show from the 1960s) and Bad Boys. Smith, now best known as an actor, began as a rapper. While Smith was never in a car crash, all I could find that related was a rumor that he and his son were killed in one... but the rumor emerged in 2019-- more than 10 years after this song was released. 

The line "some mystery, the killer get away," is true in general, but the video explains this is a reference to the still-unsolved murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. 

Yes, the line "some of us are outlawed" plays off of the "outlaw" trope from the historic Wild West, but also acknowledges that much hip-hop music is censored or even banned, and rappers themselves often run outside the law. 

But we would know that Biggie and Tupac were meant anyway... since "Outlawz" is the name of a hip-hop group of which Shakur was a member... while "Bad Boy" is also the name of a record label (founded by Sean Combs) for which Biggie recorded. 

In the Chapman song, the "fast car" is an escape from poverty to a more comfortable life. Here, it seems that any life-- even that of a superstar millionaire-- sometimes needs escaping from: "Livin' this isn't the end of the day... jump in the fast car."

The next line seems to substantiate this, with a sentiment that goes back at least as far as the Beatles saying "money can't but me love." Here, this thought is expressed: "You don't gotta be no billionaire/ To get a ticket up to the Moon.... I'm right here." The idea of billionaires with tickets to the Moon likely refers to Elon Musk's Space X project, selling flights to outer space and someday the Moon.

Then we get another musical reference: "see clearly now." This line clearly evokes the big hit of reggae singer Johnny Nash (who passed away in 2020), with its famous line: "I can see clearly now, the rain has gone."

The next verse puns the word "shots" meaning both "shots of alcohol" and "gunshots." The scenario framed is driving home after a "bachelor party" having had more than "51 shots." This high of a number of gunshots, however, likely refers to the death of Amadou Diallo." In 1999, he tried to enter is own home but was falsely seen as trying to break in. When he reached for his wallet to prove he was, in fact, at his own house, the police assumed he was reaching for a gun, and shot at him 41 times. That Jean adds 10 to that number may mean that Diallo was just one of many such victims of police... zeal. 

The case is seen as emblematic of the idea that black men are always suspect, even when innocent. The story is also told by Springsteen in his song "American Skin (41 Shots)."

And what kind of car was the partier about to drive? A "fast one."

[Note: An astute reader has informed me that another case of a police shooting, involving 51 bullets, was in fact the one Jean was likely referring to, instead. The victim was named Sean Bell, and the incident happened in 2006, just a year before this song dropped; Bell was in his car. The details are in the comments below. But wow... how sad that there are so many such stories that we can actually get them confused with each other...]

It is at this point that Simon begins to sing. He sings this bridge twice in the course of the song. Now, the "fast car" does not seem to be a means of escape at all, but the vehicle of the Angel of Death (compare this with Emily Dickinson imagining Death picking her up in his "carriage" in her Poem 479). 

Here, Simon sings: "When that fast car picks you up/ You will have no choice... You will weep and smile." And where is the car heading? "You will... see Heaven in the headlights." 

The next two verses confirm this. The lines about "TLC" and "Honduras" tell us that that the verse is about Lisa Lopes, a member of the R&B group TLC, who was killed, while doing charity work in Honduras, in a car accident.

The last verse is also about a car-accident victim, this time a 16-year-old who was killed crossing the street by a drunk driver in a "hit-and-run." This may refer to a famous case as well, but one I am at this point unfamiliar with.

So... putting this all together? Kanye was almost killed in a car crash, but Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes was.
While neither Biggie or 2Pac were killed in car crashes, cars were involved, as they were killed in drive-by shootings. Amadou Diallo was killed by police shooting from behind their (parked) cars, but he was on his front porch. 

Maybe the message is that one should not put one's faith in a car to provide an escape. Cars-- and other material trappings of success-- can kill as surely as they can transport one safely. 

Instead, one should depend on God, and on people: "You don't gotta be no billionaire/ To get a ticket up to the Moon/ We all know Somebody up there" and "You need a helping hand?/ Look, I'm right here."

Next: Seven Psalms

Dori Anne

"The Leader of The Pack" and "Dead Man's Curve" are two of the more well-known "dead teenager" songs (also called "teenage tragedy songs" or even the morbid "splatter platter").


These are songs that drum up pathos by creating an angst-y teen character, often one in a societally disapproved relationship, and usually a "bad boy" or "bad girl" archetype... and then killing them off.

This Simon-as-Landis song, performed by David Winters. In this case, the doomed teen is another archetype, the pure-as-driven-snow one, who of course did not deserve to die.

While most dead teenager songs seem meant as cautionary tales by adults, and James-Dean tragedies to teens, this one is just plain sad. The song starts with a contradiction: “I'm all by myself, but I'm not alone.” How so? “Dori Anne, you’re always with me.” How tender. Is she out of town, perhaps after a move, or attending a distant school?

“I walk along the shore and sit beneath our tree,” the speaker continues, yearningly. “You were 16, my most precious queen.”

“Were”? Oh, no. Well, break-ups happen. Best not to keep revisiting your old hangouts and move on.

“Then came that fateful day.” Suddenly, the song takes a darker turn… The speaker (actually speaking this time, as in “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’”) tells of the tragic death: “A blinding headlight, a crash in the night/ Took my Dori Anne away.” Truly awful.

“The rest of my life, my love will be true/ Dori Anne, I’ll always love you.” True, there is little getting over a trauma like that when one is in the throes of adolescence. (A better line however, would have been “I am always with you,” to invert the earlier “You are always with me.”

Also, there will be difficult times ahead for whomever falls for this boy, as they will have to compete with the memory of a dead teenage—and thereby perfect— romance. No less than James Joyce, in his short story “The Dead,” explores the impossibility of a fulfilling life for the person who marries one who, in turn, pines for a tragically lost teenage love.

So very many teens die each year. Today, it could be gunfire or an overdose or a bully-provoked suicide, but once parents mostly worried about illnesses and accidents, causes of teen death also still prevalent. While it is easy to dismiss or even mock songs like this for preying on teens’ hyperbolic emotional states, teen death does, sadly, occur. And when it does, teen survivors and mourners can turn to such songs to help them cope. Simply knowing that others have endured such pain can be healing, as is music in general— it is part of funeral services in most cultures, after all.

A co-worker of mine is actually attending an annual memorial service for a teen he knew who passed away. The young man was in a band and loved music; every year, attendees are asked to bring a song lyric to read at the memorial.

We’ll never forget him, the Leader of the Pack. 

Musical Note: David Winters began acting on TV as a kid, then moved to Broadway, playing Baby John in the original Broadway version of West Side Story, switching to the role of A-rab for the movie version. He then became a dance teacher and choreographer (Viva Las Vegas), then a director and producer, both on stage and onscreen. Through it all, he never stopped acting.

Next song:  Please Don’t Tell Her

Back Seat Driver

[Readers-- Two milestones have been reached, thanks to you! April, 2014 marked the first month in which this blog received 5,000 pageviews in one month. And it was also the month which saw the blog's 100,000th pageview since its launch in May, 2006. Thanks for all your support, comments, and readership over the years.]

"Backseat driving" is generally done by someone in the backseat, and it involves unasked-for suggestions made (often in a constant stream) by the passenger to the driver. In this case, we assume that she is in the front passenger seat, but the terminology remains.

This is a comedy number along the lines of "Yakety-Yak," about the frustrations of adolescence, but closer to the "Wake Up, Little Susie" format in that it is about getting into trouble while on a date, and in that the conversation is between a couple.

The song begins with a boyfriend telling his girlfriend that, while they are going for a spin, he wants "No backseat drivin', y'hear?" Even at the beginning of the song, we hear the anger in the young man's voice: "Talk, talk, talk/ I can't take no more/ If you don't like my driving/ Just open the door/ Get out... Start walking."

The song's structure varies between dialogue-- both cajoling ("Don't you know how to relax?") and yelled ("Why don't you stop buggin' me?")-- and rhymed lines.

Then this slice of sexism; "When you drive with a woman/ You got to take it slow." Like any such remark, it is unnecessary. Perhaps Simon meant to show that the driver is not entirely the hen-pecked victim here.

Out of frustration, our driver says to his date: "You take the wheel/ I'll give all the orders/ And see how you feel/ Turn left, turn right/ Watch out!/ Didn't you see that red light?!"

His psychological experiment worked out too well. Either she is a lousy driver, or he succeeded in distracting her, or the other car was to blame. It could be all three. In any case, we see that some accident or moving violation has happened, because the last thing we hear the boyfriend say is: "See what you've done/ If you're such a good talker/ Talk us out of this one!"

You almost feel sorry for the guy-- no one likes to be corrected while he or she is doing something, particularly as delicate as piloting a two-ton, gas-powered machine that can punch a hole in a brick wall. But then he has to go all Archie Bunker on us with that sexist crack.

Maybe they just deserve each other.

Next Song: Beach Blanket Baby

Cars are Cars

In most sci-fi movies with a "rise of the machines" premise, in which the robots take over the world, it is assumed that the human audience is against this and is rooting for the humans onscreen. With Simon, we can't be so sure.

Not after this song. In it, the words "Cars are cars/ All over the world" are repeated almost mechanically, as if to illustrate the sameness the lyrics describe. The speaker seems comforted by this predictability of cars and frustrated by the vicissitudes of the human, analog world.

On the one hand, we have cars, which have a predictable lifespan. Even those in once hailed in ticker-tape parades or having chauffeured heads of state in "motorcades" are easily "abandoned when they’re old," since after all, they are ultimately only machines.

The speaker even lists the parts all cars have in common-- "Engine... Jack... Wheels... Pinion and a rack" (meaning the common rack-and-pinion steering system).

The music in the choruses is jerky, full of the start-stop of rush-hour traffic. The trumpets and saxes obviously stand in for car horns, and in the lines "Drive 'em on the left/ Drive 'em on the right," the lines cleverly come through those respective speakers. Simon did spend some time in England, so he would have experienced driving on both sides of the road.

This gets to the speaker's other point. If cars are the same in all countries, why do people drive them on different sides of the road in different countries? Nations can be frustratingly inconsistent; regional practices "change (even) with the curve" of a road.

This is especially apparent as one moves (or drives) around the world "from time zone to time zone." While cars treat all roads the same and don't care what the nationalities of their drivers are, people can be isolationist and "shut down their borders." While all cars are (sometimes painfully) aware that other cars can affect them, people erroneously think that by closing their eyes and ears to the outside world, they become "immune" (consider, for example, a European economic crisis, poorly understood and therefore ignored by many Americans.)

People are even proud of their "differences." Further, in the words of a James Bond film title, feel that 'the world is not enough' and so they "shoot at the Moon." Why? So they can drive there! It was Jerry Seinfeld who noted that, once on the Moon, the astronauts traveled even more a dune buggy: "The Moon wasn't far enough? There's nothing more like a guy than going all the way to the Moon just so you can drive around."

Now, most songs about cars celebrate their uniqueness and specialness to their owners, from the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" to Prince's "Little Red Corvette," to Springsteen's songs about Cadillacs. Here, the speaker revels that they are "Similarly made/ Similarly sold... All over the world."

And yet... the speaker admits that while all cars are the same worldwide, he had one that was special: "I once had a car/ That was more like a home/ I lived in it, loved in it... If some of my homes/ Had been more like my car/ I probably wouldn’t have/ Traveled this far."

You would think that, living in a car, one would travel more than if one lived in a house. But a house could be is something so miserable or confining that it has to be escaped, and then the next one, until one finds he has moved all across the country.

Meanwhile, a car-- a very cramped living space-- actually might feel more open and free than a house with a prison-like atmosphere. When you feels trapped, you must escape. But if you can go anywhere you like, at any time, there is no need to flee; you might as well stay where you are. How many endured jail just for insisting that they wanted to leave the Soviet Union, as opposed to many in America who can move as they please, yet stay put, even for generations.

So people, who can move anywhere and become anything they like, tend to be nationalistic and politically unchanging. Meanwhile, cars, which have no volition and can only go where they are driven, are accommodating and familiar to all.

A Japanese car is perfectly at home on an American road, and vice versa. But just try that with people.


Next Song: "The Late Great Johnny Ace"

Papa Hobo

Mostly, we hear about people wanting to escape small towns (as in "My Little Town"). Our speaker here wants to escape the major city of Detroit.

The speaker seems to be a janitor, perhaps in a restaurant: "Sweep up! I've been sweeping up the tips I've made." He's "dressed like a schoolboy," but perhaps is not one any longer, having graduated or dropped out; he simply cannot afford newer, adult clothes.

But he also has aspirations, is seems, to be an athlete: "I've been living on Gatorade." Even though Detroit is a "basketball town," with "a hell of a hockey team," he is not looking to be discovered by a hometown team; "I've been planning my getaway... I'm in the road."

The other thing Detroit is, of course, is a "car town," and the song starts off by discussing the town's major paradox-- the very "carbon...monoxide" that is the town's "perfume" is also killing the people of the town: "it lays you down by noon."

Likewise, the car industry can lure people to their doom: "Got a left-handed way of making a man/ Sign up on that automotive dream." But it remains a dream-- not many make it from the factory floor to the executive suite.

This is the "natural reaction" one learns, being treating this "left-handed" way (the term seems to mean something different here than in "Phillipic," which contains the line, "I'm a Communist 'cause I'm left-handed.")

Sports becomes the escape route, either as a distraction or possible alternate career. But basketball and hockey are both marked by quick changes in a player's status from offense to defense-- one's fortune's change too quickly, and are affected by both one's own team and one's opponents, both out of a player's control.

Our speaker is left feeling like a "clown," disillusioned by the left-handedness of the auto industry and disappointed by sports.

Even science offers no certainty. In "The Only Living Boy," we find the line, "I get the news I need on the weather report." Here, we find, "the weatherman lied," and our speaker finds himself in need of a "ride" out of town.

Enter Papa Hobo. A "hobo" is a drifter, a transient, in older parlance. Today, we would use the word "homeless," but while many homeless are stuck in one city, a hobo would hop on passing train cars and ride to another town on a regular basis.

Papa Hobo is not necessarily anyone's father, but is some sort of father figure among the local or hobo population. Our speaker sees in him one last hope-- self sufficiency. Complete self-reliance, even in poverty.

So he finally, we presume, makes it out Detroit for parts unknown. The final irony? His escape is made in a car, the very reason he is leaving altogether.

Next Song: Paranoia Blues