Fast Car

It was 1988. I was stepping out of the shower in my New York City apartment one night. MTV was on in the living room. I was toweling myself off when I heard that infectious guitar riff. 

Just a little magical soulful shape that stilled the towel. I cocked an ear in its direction. 

Then I heard the voice. 

You got a fast car

And I want a ticket to anywhere

Low and sultry. I thought the singer was a he. Back then female artists were not competing for Mariah Carey-esque melisma. (Maria hadn’t even come onto the scene yet.) They weren’t striving for the highest notes in their range. They all sounded different. 

I went to have a look. It said “Tracy Chapman” on the screen. That could have been a man’s name. It didn’t matter though. Whoever it was, I was possessed and disarmed. The track faded out too quickly. I had to hear it again STAT and I couldn’t tap on an APP. I’d have to work for it. I’d have to walk the 10 blocks down to Tower Records. 

I put my clothes back on instead of my pajamas and headed south down Broadway with my Walkperson. I flipped through the alphabetical bin of CDs and grabbed a copy. The cashier said, “She’s good, right?”Tracy Chapman was a woman. Fine! I tore off the cellophane and slammed the disc into my device. I headed back uptown. I wasn’t imagining things. It was as good as I thought. Then I played it again and again and again. 

Why? 

In Tracy’s case it was her eloquent and authentic story telling. 

Understated delivery.

And Lyrics. Lyrics matter. 

So does message. 

Escapism. Who can’t imagine (or hasn’t ever before) flying down the highway with a feeling that you belong? A feeling that you could be someone, be someone, be someone? 

I have. all the time. 

It’s a Universal concept in a unique frame. 

Luke Combs is no fool. 35 years later he covers it and again it’s all the rage. It made Tracy Chapman the  First Black Songwriter to Win CMA Awards' Song of the Year. 

He thanked Tracy for writing “one of the best songs of all time.“ I guess a piece of the publishing didn’t matter to him as much as his desire to re-gift an exquisite work of art.

We play Tracy’s “Fast Car” every semester in my College Songwriting class. They think Tracy Chapman is covering a Luke Combs song.😳 I correct them. I want them to know about Tracy. And … I want the kids to understand that if you break with traditional song structure (I count 7 verses before she opens up) you’d best compensate — give us something so stellar that our expectations of how a song should flow aren’t disappointed.

I ask my students to think about this. I ask them to imagine what it would take to write a song that could conceivably be covered in 2053. The award is not as important.  

To be fair, I wonder how newcomer (Luke’s been arond) Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” would fare if she gave us that song today. With almost 1 million songs being uploaded to the DSPs every week, music consumers jumping all around an unlimited buffet, songs having 4 seconds to grab a listener before they click on something else, would we ever get past the first 8 bars of that infectious riff to the:

“You got a fast car

And I want a ticket to anywhere”?

I dunno. But I did notice that Luke cuts the intro in half. 😎

What’s next? A cover of “Don’t Dream It’s Over”?  I hope so.

Luke? 

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