Pray a Little Faster

Song Meaning

The lyrics to "Pray a Little Faster" immediately plunge the listener into a scene of frantic urgency. The speaker demands intense, immediate prayer from anyone, regardless of language or belief system. There's a palpable sense of an impending, inescapable crisis looming over everything. The central emotional tension driving these lyrics is encapsulated in the repeated line, "We got too far to run." This phrase anchors the desperate calls to prayer, suggesting a situation so dire that physical escape is no longer an option. The lyrics imply a collective predicament where traditional solutions have failed, leaving only a desperate, almost chaotic, spiritual appeal as a perceived last resort. It creates a feeling of being utterly cornered and out of conventional options. A particularly striking craft element is the expansive, almost irreverent, list of potential prayer targets. The speaker urges appeals in "native or second tongue," "Pig Latin or Pigeon," then broadens to "religion," "voodoo," "trees," "sun," and even "the alien." This dismantling of specific dogma underscores the sheer panic and willingness to try *anything* to avert disaster. It's a pragmatic, almost cynical, approach to faith, prioritizing desperate action over conventional belief, born purely of extreme duress. The effectiveness of these lyrics stems from their relentless, escalating urgency and the stark contrast between mundane distractions and existential dread. Commands like "forget about the girls and forget about the boys" and "turn off the TV" sharply juxtapose everyday life with a looming, unnamed catastrophe. This abrupt shift, combined with the chant-like repetition of "Pray a little faster," creates a compelling sense of shared, immediate danger that taps into a primal fear of the unknown and inescapable. The final, echoing "We got too far to run" powerfully reinforces the inescapable nature of the threat.