'Cause I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm's real nice wrapped 'round my shoulder and
I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
Well dip me and fry me. Coupled with the shock of the shifting melody, the chorus feels like a tantalizing taste of a world that the singer can only experience in fleeting, isolated moments. Her voice fills with passion and energy, the drums finally snap out of their slumber - you can keep your ZZ Top, 'cause this is what it really feels like to cruise down a deserted highway at top speed. But alas, the moment passes, the sense of elation dissipates, the reality of her drab and monotonous existence sneaks back in. For one shining second, the narrator almost felt like she could be someone, and then she remembered, " Oh wait, that's right, I'm no one. Oh yeahhhh. Whoops! My bad."
Props to Chapman for leaving the scenario tantalizingly unresolved. She doesn't even bother to suggest that her characters' lives might ultimately improve. They might forever be stuck driving a car with a maximum speed limit of - gasp! - 58 mph. But you know what? Life doesn't resolve.
Appropriately enough, "Fast Car" hit the airwaves toward the tail end of the Summer of '88 - a sign, perhaps, that the harsh winds of autumn were just around the corner. As the single wafted from the radio of my family's not particularly quick motor vehicle, even eight-year-old me noticed that it, as they say, stood out a bit. Did I, sensitive and thoughtful young man that I was, take this opportunity to champion the single's unconventional flavor? On the contrary. I made merciless sport of it. Honestly, all I heard was "You got a fast car." I didn't even pay attention to the rest of the lyrics. Why would she be so worked up about a fast car? The song had such an air of "intensity" and "importance" to it, and yet the whole thing simply revolved around the velocity of her freakin' automobile? Gimme a break! I remember In Living Color did a parody sketch of "Fast Car" called "I Write a Fast Song." At the time, I thought this skit was the most hilarious work of modern comedy I had ever seen. It cut to the essence of what I found so "Mad Lib" about Chapman's folkie verite style. Hey, I was young.
Props to Chapman for leaving the scenario tantalizingly unresolved. She doesn't even bother to suggest that her characters' lives might ultimately improve. They might forever be stuck driving a car with a maximum speed limit of - gasp! - 58 mph. But you know what? Life doesn't resolve.
Appropriately enough, "Fast Car" hit the airwaves toward the tail end of the Summer of '88 - a sign, perhaps, that the harsh winds of autumn were just around the corner. As the single wafted from the radio of my family's not particularly quick motor vehicle, even eight-year-old me noticed that it, as they say, stood out a bit. Did I, sensitive and thoughtful young man that I was, take this opportunity to champion the single's unconventional flavor? On the contrary. I made merciless sport of it. Honestly, all I heard was "You got a fast car." I didn't even pay attention to the rest of the lyrics. Why would she be so worked up about a fast car? The song had such an air of "intensity" and "importance" to it, and yet the whole thing simply revolved around the velocity of her freakin' automobile? Gimme a break! I remember In Living Color did a parody sketch of "Fast Car" called "I Write a Fast Song." At the time, I thought this skit was the most hilarious work of modern comedy I had ever seen. It cut to the essence of what I found so "Mad Lib" about Chapman's folkie verite style. Hey, I was young.
Black-on-black domestic violence: still funny! The thing is, even though I made fun of the song, I also ... liked it. Sort of like how a boy in elementary school might express his attraction to a girl by picking on her.
When I heard "Fast Car" again in the mid-'90s, I realized that it is actually Depressing with a capital D. "We'll move out of the shelter"? Wait, they live in a shelter? Not even the loners and drifters in Bruce Springsteen songs live in shelters. "My old man's got a problem/Yeah, with the bottle, that's the way it is"? But ... but ... according to hair metal songs, I thought there wasn't any problem in the world that a couple of shots of whiskey couldn't fix. "See more of your friends than you do of your kids"? Wait, since when did protagonists in pop songs have kids? You mean sex actually produces kids? George Michael didn't tell me about this.
In a way, "Fast Car" didn't fit in with the Summer of '88 at all; it was more like an early glimpse of the '90s. Somewhere in a dingy coffee shop on the outskirts of town, Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls took notice. I don't know how, but "Fast Car" peaked at #6, and Chapman's accompanying debut album peaked at #1. Yes, an album that featured an opening track called "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and a third track that featured the following chorus: "Across the lines/Who would dare to go/Under the bridge, over the tracks/That separate whites from blacks?" Millions of PC college kids and lapsed hippie housewives rose up in unison and said, "I will buy this Tracy Chapman album!" And to think, Natalie Merchant thought she had her finger on the middle class liberal zeitgeist.
Seriously though. How great was it that, for a few weeks there, "Fast Car" was jostling around on the radio dial alongside material like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Hold On to the Nights"? Hey, had enough of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson while you're sitting there stuck in traffic on the 405? How about a radical leftist black lesbian to serenade you during your morning commute?
Go ahead, other decades: just try to out-weird the '80s.
In a way, "Fast Car" didn't fit in with the Summer of '88 at all; it was more like an early glimpse of the '90s. Somewhere in a dingy coffee shop on the outskirts of town, Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls took notice. I don't know how, but "Fast Car" peaked at #6, and Chapman's accompanying debut album peaked at #1. Yes, an album that featured an opening track called "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and a third track that featured the following chorus: "Across the lines/Who would dare to go/Under the bridge, over the tracks/That separate whites from blacks?" Millions of PC college kids and lapsed hippie housewives rose up in unison and said, "I will buy this Tracy Chapman album!" And to think, Natalie Merchant thought she had her finger on the middle class liberal zeitgeist.
Seriously though. How great was it that, for a few weeks there, "Fast Car" was jostling around on the radio dial alongside material like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Hold On to the Nights"? Hey, had enough of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson while you're sitting there stuck in traffic on the 405? How about a radical leftist black lesbian to serenade you during your morning commute?
Go ahead, other decades: just try to out-weird the '80s.
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