Songfacts®:

• The Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation were founded in 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and her long-term partner, guitarist Robert Westerholt. This is the first single from their fifth album The Unforgiving, which had its worldwide radio premiere on 96.3 Rock Radio on January 21, 2011.
  
  Westerholt and Adel wrote the song with their producer, Daniel Gibson.
• In our interview with Sharon den Adel, she talked about the meaning of the lyrics. "'Faster' is about the fact that you have to stay in conflict to get what you want as an individual in life," she explained. "When you're working with a company or in a relationship, when you're working with other people, you've got to set some boundaries for yourself which you won't cross because ethically it's not okay to go over that boundary for yourself. Because that's what you stand for, that's who you are, those are your values.
  
  That's what the song is about: you can't live with lies. You just have to be who you are and what you stand for. And sometimes you're frustrated about it and you just want to fast forward away from the problem, but you also have to deal with the thing that's happening at that time in your life."
• Robert Westerholt told the story of the song in an interview with AntiMusic: "It's quite bizarre how uncontrollable songwriting very often is. You can work for hours even days on idea cause you think it's great and in the end have you have to let it go cause you can't make it work.
  
  On rare occasions it works the other way around. On a day like any other in the studio room you're sitting down with a guitar. Then like by themselves your hands start to play a random chord scheme and without realizing the other one starts humming a melody. Just because you're used to record almost every idea on your phone you press the record button. Five minutes later you realize it's a pretty nice basic idea for song. Then with like any other good idea the rest goes by itself like the song's got a will of its own.
  
  Now this was pretty much the case with Faster. Sharon came home with an idea and wasn't even so eager to let me hear it cause she didn't think it was anything special. But I was curious so I put it on. Straightaway, the moment I heard it I was in love with it. It was so powerful and intense and still such a simple and straightforward song.
  
  For years I've been trying to write a song like that, one simple strong melody line and one three chord scheme throughout the whole song. I never got it to work. But now it was there, finally, and what a good feeling to have it. So often also with good songs you never struggle with them. The whole recording and mixing process of the song was a joy, going by itself. Without realizing it till the very end, we had our first single just like that. An unexpected gift and those are always the nicest ones."
• Sharon den Adel admitted to Metal Ways that the band initially feared the song was too similar to a certain Chris Isaak hit. She said: "Actually, 'Faster' sounds a bit like Wicked Game... Yes, it has the same atmosphere. It has similar, almost the same, accords, but it is different... So, we've been going like: 'Ooooh we have re-written Wicked Games' and then 'No, the chords scheme is different, we don't have to worry. And it's a written song!' (laughs) 'Yay!'"