I bought Eliza a copy of Fast Car by Tracy Chapman on 7" for Christmas. I've been buying her bits of vinyl since she was young, a small and eclectic record collection taking shape. It's a song which has crossed the generations, partly due to the strength of original and partly due to two recent covers of it (a country cover by Luke Combs and a dance version by Jonas Blue- we'll skip past both today). Fast Car came out in April 1988, the self- titled album released the day before. Two months later Tracy Chapman stepped out on stage at Wembley Stadium and performed Fast Car to an international audience at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday concert organised by Jerry Dammers, the Anti- Apartheid and the ANC. Chapman hadn't expected to be thrust onto the stage so suddenly having already sung her three scheduled songs- Stevie Wonder was supposed to go on but his floppy disc failed and he panicked. Tracy was quickly shoved centre stage with just her guitar and a microphone. Fast Car was the song she sang.
Universal and unflashy folk pop, lyrics about a working class woman and dreams of escape from a dead end existence, the fast car being the ticket outta there. Tracy's narrator is at the bottom, living in a homeless shelter. 'Leave tonight or live and die this way'. It struck a chord worldwide and sold millions.
I'm really partial to this reggae cover by Foxy Brown from October 1989- digital reggae, clattering drum machine riddim and lyrics as true in Jamaica as anywhere.
Eliza's a fan of this one as well...
The poor people's revolution Tracy was talkin' 'bout in 1989 hasn't come to fruition yet. There's still time I guess but 2025 doesn't look promising from a socio- economic/ political point of view.
4 comments:
Fast Car is just one of those iconic pop songs, isn't it? Delightful in it's simplicity. Quite the main stage debut for Tracy. Didn't know about Stevie's failed floppy, but as someone old enough to remember the tune coming out, I can relate!
That exact performance by Tracy made it into that "60 years of BBC 2 in 60 songs" programme that was on over Christmas. I thought she looked (and sounded) nervy in the first couple of lines, before settling down and giving a wonderful performance - now I know why!
What a lovely idea. I didn’t appreciate what a great song Fast Car is until years later, so I must check out that live performance. I hadn’t heard the Foxy Brown version, but Xiu Xiu covered Fast Car around 2008/09, which I liked.
Here's the clip of the Mandela concert which I really should have embedded in the post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tWE9mPM9pw
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