It's funny how you can hear a song when you're young and have no life experience, then hear the same song again years later, and it hits completely different.
We all are on a fast ride, a ride which can end at any moment. Souls ain´t alright nor right with GOD, to go back home. Choosing not to repent and BORN AGAIN, souls still daily live in sins. (Luke: 13:3 KJV) Perishing because of the knowledge, which they didn´t care about knowing. (HOSEA 4:6 KJV)
Tracy did not grow up in Poverty. What is remarkable is how she inhabits what it feels like to struggle. To have little money when the world says that you can never have enough. She is Singing a Feeling... a moment in time that most everyone can relate to even not having lived it.
I was in my early 20s when I moved to Canada to find a better life for myself. This song was released right about that time and I fell in love with it instantly. It's one of those songs that makes you happy and sad at the same time. It always reminds me of those days.
I can so relate to your words. I was 13 when we left the UK to live in Vancouver. From a small northern village to a high school of 3,500! I was lonely and terrified of this new life of which I had no choice. I always turned to music for answers. All kinds of music. Country touched me deeply. Tracy Chapman, not only for the amazing lyrics that touched home for me, but for her rich deep and soulful voice. @@agolzad
There are songs that cause you to dance, there are songs that cause you to sing out loud, and there are songs that keep you silent in the stillness of your soul . This song is the latter…truly touching
Growing up with an alcoholic father ,dropped out of school as an A student at his request, only to lose him to suicide 18 years after. This is my story as a grown man whose been recovering from addiction myself. Broken homes. Shattered lives , this song touches lives on so many levels.....
I hope you have been able to get your life together. We can decide to live in our past and be victims or turn the page and be grateful for surviving that and being stronger for it. I chose to live my life with no regrets. It’s not easy but it’s worth it!
I was married in 1976 and my wife and I used to go for drives in the evening almost every night. It was a time when we could share where we wanted to go in life and how we could get there. They were good times and I remember them well. When this song was released in 1988 I had been divorced for a year and was now a single parent of three. This song brought back those memories and on occasion caused me grief. All those dreams gone forever. But it also inspired me. I was a Father of three young children and they relied on me to help make their dreams come true. I would take my youngsters everywhere with me. I'd listen to what they wanted and how they thought they would get there while we were out just driving around. I had a motorcycle with a sidecar in those days and we were out often just roaming around. It introduced my kids to a whole new world of bikers and how they lived and what their values were. I used to take my brats to live music venues so they could appreciate real music performed by real people. We did a lot of things together and I always tried to open their eyes up to the real world. To this day every time I hear this song I am reminded of those three babes and how much they learned from our "Driving our fast car". I never achieved so many of those things I wanted in the early days due to circumstances but I did achieve one thing. My kids still remember those days and they know who their Dad is. That's good enough for me.
Oh how I remember where I was when I first heard this song. I was in a terrible marriage, looking for a way out. I bought the CD (which btw has numerous great songs), and listened to this over and over again. It's an emotionally and melodically complicated song that clearly resonates with SO MANY different people. Thank you, Tracy Chapman, and I'm so glad I got to see you sing this live.
First time I heard this song I was in a bad marriage. I was coming home from work and I related to it right away and I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to hearing it all the time.
It’s so rare that a song can paint a picture that makes you feel as if you’ve watched a whole movie with these characters and are feeling the emotions right there with them
She's got more talent in her little finger than Taylor Swift's whole body. She should be a super star and she probably would be if she were white and blonde. Sad but true
This is called real talent. Never heard of this song until the Grammys 2024, and now I cant stop listening to it. It came out before I was born. Thanks Tracy for sharing this treasure with us.
I was a 22yo wreck this song hit me dead in the face, I started trying to get my life together after a tremulous childhood and then a heartbreaking breakup and what do u know it comes back and hits me dead in the face again
35 years ago this was a masterpiece of writing and singing. 35 years later? Still a complete masterpiece. Tracy sounds just as good. Man, she looks like she aged about 2 hours! Incredibly talented. Her blues guitaring is sensational. Beautiful musician.
Her 1988 Oakland Coliseum show was one of the best live performances of all time. I've watched it dozens of times and it blows me away each time I watch it.
Pure, raw talent. Just her amazing voice, and a guitar. No filters, no flashing lights, dancers or anything. Just Tracy Chapman singing so beautifully.
She certainly doesn’t need any studio recording tricks to make her voice better. Sounds every bit as amazing live as it does on the radio. Awesome song!
Yes. Immortality is when popular opinion becomes fact. It is believed to be, so it is. Fucked up how existential life had become. It really became immortal not too long after it was released, we were just too young/ naive to realize it.
So... immortal? Dunno if that's quite the word, but... I'm a 78 year old white guy who was frickin' BLOWN AWAY when this song first appeared on VH1 in 1988. I was a pastor in Birmingham AL and was captivated by it. I just joined Ultimate Guitar (subscription), logged in... had to select a decade - hmmm... picked the 80s (some of the greatest pop music EVER made) - and somehow, of the 10s of 1,000s of songs I could have picked from the catalog to find the chords to was... Yep... Tracy's Fast Car. So, here I am... again - as deeply impressed by the simplicity of the chord progression and the stunning depth of the gut-wrenching lyrics of heart-longing as the first time I heard it. THAT, my brothers & sisters IS A SONG, IS MUSIC. Thanks, Tracy, for breaking the glass ceiling of a young black female soloist with GUTS and your message waaaay back in 1988.
I’ve never seen Tracy Chapman live but I did shoot KD Lange’s show in Portland. It was as epic, I imagine. I had to put down my camera to cry when she sang Hallelujah.
This song speaks to the struggle of the average person especially marginalized members of our society. It's quite a composition. There's just something special about Tracy Chapman.
While I understand where you’re coming from when watching videos. But I must admit that there is nothing like a good crowd sing along. Gives me goose bumps each time. Shows the importance of the song to everyone who was singing along.
I absolutely love the fact that you could literally hear a pin drop during most of this song because the audience was dead silent just listening to her sing an absolute legendary piece of work. Love this song even more now than when I heard it when I was younger. Means soo much more now.
Me 5am 7th Oct Liverpool, I have loved this song since its first recording but always thought she sang '' my arms and legs wrapped around your shoulders" and I still have to check myself when when belting this out in the garden 😳🙄
Not only is this a beautiful song. But the lyrics are so impactful. I’ve been listening since it was released and it has the same impact on me even now. Genius at work
Remember this song growing up, always playing in background, now listening to the lyrics at 40, this has to be one of the best songs ever written, it hits me in the gut, she is truly gifted.
Just pure raw talent. This song is all about dreams. Without dreams we die. The only way to make it in life is to dream big and never let anyone tell you that you cant make it. Believe in you always, Always.
Believe in You, Always! I’m old now, but doubt and uncertainty never got me what I needed. Follow your dreams, you may find out that your dreams lead to something unexpected, but even better than you imagined.
Her voice is velvet. I’m glad Combs covered this and brought it to a new generation who may have forgotten this masterpiece. Real music fans will always go looking for the original, so they get introduced to Chapman
I've loved this song since it was released in the late 80s. More recently, I've studied trauma and adverse childhood conditions, and I can say this song so poignantly captures the desperate plight of so many souls. Look at the way that the song seems to meander in the first half in the same locked pattern - like the way people are locked into the patterns of their lives. This musical repetition seems to go on longer than is usually expected in a song: when we think it ought to break into a chorus, it returns to "You got a fast car..." and holds the same pattern. It builds a tension which makes the break, when it comes, more powerful. The chorus "I remember we were driving..." is that emotional outpour, not quite a dam burst, but a surge of desperate hope fueled by one single moment in time where everything felt right, or right enough, in which she glimpsed a fleeting vision of how life could and should be, where she felt she belonged and could be someone. "Be someone, be someone," echoes the desperation of those whose thwarted ambitions are inextricably bound in self-defeating patterns and trauma. And then the musical surge is lost and, true to the nature of emotional dissociation, we go back again to the repetition of "You got a fast car..." In writing the song, Tracy was surely too young to have technical knowledge of things like trauma and dissociation - and yet it's there - she knew it introspectively, and captured it instinctively as an artist in the lyrics and how they are woven with the music. The song doesn't flinch in honestly portraying that such positive dreams aren't enough for so many people who hold on to the vision for a while, as reality continues to fail to meet it, and it becomes less real to them, until that one inspiring memory of feeling a sense of belonging loses its power as emotional fuel for the future, and comes to be just a memory of a moment in one's past, though a memory still worth cherishing. The song has been beautifully breaking my heart for 35 years.
Muito joia Legal essas músicas internacional anos 80 70 me lembro quando a essência muito bacana quando era criança recordação me leva muito Tenho saudade daquele tempo😁😆😃🤩
I was born and raise in another country and not having a clue what she was singing about I'm now living in the States. I'm so fortunate to be able to understand what she sings about ¡Bravo!
OH tHOMAS! I wish you could understand. When you grow up so far DOWN, so much pain and heartache. All you can see as a little one is being in a fast car (life going 100 miles an hour), your father breaking your little heart and you see nothing and no way out, nowhere to go. But when you are strong and look up, you can capture what you feel in the music. She held on to it so tightly. FOR YEARS. Many like me identified with what she was saying. No one, NO ONE heard her until someone else in another culture identified with her plight. Now, just like from the beginning of time, in real time she is heard. Can you understand where I'm coming from? You have to have been there, lived those words she transformed, to hear her plight. What a great poet, musician, and artist. AMEN. (PS) Thomas, welcome to the USA. So glad you are here.
Most people don't realize this song goes deep into the struggles to grow, make a better living, how delusions and addiction can damage life, the fast car is that analogy to shortcuts and false expectations that life will be easier somehow. Those who had a hard upbringing or parents with alcohol abuse will get it.
@@animal1nstinct394Luke Combs is great, but he has never lived in poverty, so his rendition doesn’t resonate with me. I grew up in a dead broke household but had excellent family support, this song has a special place in my heart.
@@trenragerYou couldn't have put it any better. I live in a 3rd world country. I never lacked beyond what I really needed, as my family is middle class. But this original rings deep.
@@trenrageryou do realize that Tracy grew up in a working class neighborhood in Cleveland. How is that any different that Luke combs? Seems like you are assuming instead of gathering the facts
@@animal1nstinct394 Luke Combs version of this is a good song with a good sound, but Tracy's version of it is a great song that touches your soul. There's no comparison between the two
You keep driving forward. 1 step at a time. Don't worry how long it takes to get there...you'll get there when YOU'RE supposed to get there. Sorry for you loss.
i too have one for my dead brother ( even 2) both japanese i don't know why but i feel they are better at make feel the feeling before and after a lost...
Thank you Tracy for your talent, your clean voice , your music , it was a pleasure to see you at the 2024 Grammy, you showed that we still have real artists.
Vivo en México y Tracy Chapman ha estado en mí repertorio musical desde niña, tantos maravillosos artistas desde los 50´s.60´s,70´s,80´s, 90´s, algunos ya se han ido y otros simplemente han sido olvidados...sé que hay música nueva, pero espero que se comience a revivir la buena música del pasado y no darla al olvido...son reliquias musicales.
I have one of two involuntary reactions when I hear this song. Either I gently weep OR, I crank the volume up to a “10” and belt the song at the top of my lungs. 35 years and 1,000 plays later, this song still deeply touches my soul. 🤍
This is one of those songs that forces you to feel. You can’t ignore the poignancy of the words. Especially because so many kids have lived this exact story. It absolutely does break your heart when you think that despite what this child is experiencing, she still has dreams. Big, ridiculous dreams that may never come true. And yet, you find yourself almost in tears praying that she makes it. Such an amazing song. I remember the first time I heard it. I went to the record store the next day and bought it. So many, many years later, with all the pain and trauma that life throws at you, it really lands with more impact because it’s so damned real. We didn’t have a word back then. We do now. Parentification. The worst thing short of molestation a parent to do to their child.
God Bless you Tracy for this beautiful beautiful song 🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 I just love this song and all of your beautiful music well done sweetie ❤❤❤❤❤❤
The lyrics say “I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere” and you can feel the weight of that decision: to accept that you are and will forever be trapped living a life without happiness. I respect you, Tracy. Thank you for writing this song
I know this this song evercince it came out,but I never paid real attention to it , never listend to the entire song and listening to the lyrics. I rediscovered it on RU-vid about 3 weeks ago, I listen every day since.
Sorry, but i desagree. If you read the complete song, i think that lyric means that she got what she want (got a job pays all the bills, children...), but her boyfriend didnt. So, she doesnt want to go anywhere, because she got what she was finding; Then, breaks with the boyfriend and tells hin to take a car and go away, and find his own life.
@@gonzalolopezdelerena5859 I agree, I don't think she is saying she is forever trapped in a life without happiness, but that her hopes and dreams to build something better with her man (now the father to her children) are now gone, and she continues to do the responsible thing, as a mother and provider, and is telling her man to get it together or get out, which I think is her accepting her situation. While not completely hopeless, it shows the struggle to escape the cycles of our parents, our situation. Not a happy ending, but at the same time she is not giving up to a life of unhappiness, while at the same time she realizes as a mother, and older, those youthful dreams are over, but she is still working on providing for her kids. So while splitting hairs a bit, it is definitely not a "happy ending", and it is sad her man doesn't have his stuff together for his family, and dreams of something much bigger/better have faded.
Tracy Chapman. Fast Car. Love this song. Hits on such a personal level and im sure many have gone through similar or same circumstances. Tracys voice brings back nostalgia.
My mom who passed away loved this song so I did too. Luke combs brought those feelings to the surface again and I'm so thankful for this song. I'm tired of all the comparisons, both songs are amazing. Even tracey doesn't like all the hate revolving around Luke's cover.
I agree with Frank Bruno of the New York Times (in his opinion article of this week): this song is perfect. Ms. Chapman’s voice is clear, ever so poignant, and agelessly beautiful; her inner and her outer beauty is timeless, everlasting; her eyes both (1) invite us to her soul; and (2) drill into ours with ruthless, but loving precision. Like so many others who commented, I have loved this song since she first gave it to us and it never ever loses its luster. I first heard Fast Car when I was 27; now, at 61, it is still one of my very few “go to” songs for comfort, solace, and inspiration. Thank you for sharing this precious gem, Ms. Chapman!
Masterpiece, thank you Tracy Chapman for blessing the world with your talent. You rock at the Grammy what a beautiful surprise. I hope the Grammys remember to always bring back the artists that played a huge role in our childhood.
"Fast Car" is a song by Tracy Chapman that tells a poignant story of hope, longing, and the pursuit of a better life. It portrays the struggles and aspirations of a young woman seeking to escape her current circumstances and find a better future. The song begins with the narrator's desire to escape her dead-end town and her mundane life. She dreams of owning a fast car as a means of leaving her troubles behind and embarking on a new journey. The fast car represents freedom, opportunity, and the chance to break free from the limitations imposed on her. Throughout the song, Chapman weaves a narrative that highlights the harsh realities and challenges faced by the protagonist. She yearns for a different life, away from poverty, hardship, and unfulfilled dreams. The lyrics reflect the longing for something better and the willingness to take risks to achieve it. As the song progresses, the narrator's dreams become entangled with a romantic relationship. She meets someone who also seeks to escape their circumstances, and together they hope to build a better life. However, despite their initial optimism, the relationship becomes strained, and the narrator realizes that the other person's promises may be empty. This realization forces her to confront the harsh truth that simply escaping her current situation may not solve all her problems. "Fast Car" ultimately conveys a sense of bittersweet reality. It portrays the struggles faced by individuals living in poverty and the challenges of breaking free from such circumstances. While the fast car represents the hope of a better life, it also serves as a reminder that true happiness and fulfillment require more than just physical escape. The song's lyrics are powerful and evocative, addressing themes of socioeconomic inequality, the yearning for a better future, and the complexities of human relationships. Tracy Chapman's soulful delivery and the song's stripped-down, acoustic sound contribute to its emotional impact, making "Fast Car" a timeless anthem that resonates with listeners on a personal and universal level.
She doesn't dream of owning a fast car. She's singing about her boyfriend who has a fast car, and as she tries to work their way out of poverty, he loses jobs and drives around late at night with his friends, not helping at all, and she watches her dream of a better life slowly get further and further away.
I sang this song when I was 12 years old , my mama forced me becaus I was going out of country. Now I sing it when Im alone never wanting to leave this country again First i thought Tracy was a man but she is a very beautiful strong woman I love this song
There is something so achingly, yearningly sad about this song. It sounds like the opposite of having your whole life ahead of you. Like it’s already too late and you’re almost at the finish line, without having to truly live at all. Definitely one of the saddest songs for me, from the melody, the lyrics, even Tracy’s beautiful tone.
"I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere" are such sad lyrics. At the beginning she has hopes that life can get better, and plans for how they can accomplish that. Now all her hopes are dashed. 😞
one of the best songs ever written. It grabs hold of your soul and takes you for a ride. Absolutely beautiful. I never get tired of heard this, any time, any where.
Concordo com você meu amigo James essa fera tracys quê canta demais e com uma simplicidade com sua guitarra..por onde quer quê vá trás sempre no rosto um sorriso tão cativante e meiguice no olhar é coisa de louco muito linda como às músicas 🎶 🎶 🎶 quê éla interpreta..meus parabéns pôr ter tanto gosto como éu ok..então quê Deus te abençoe sempre desta sua nova amiga Estrela da Conceição beijos 👄 💋 🎵 🔥🎶🎶🎵🎵💘🎼🎼💘👍👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻
I think it was the N.Y. Times that did a hit piece on Combs for what they claimed was effectively a racist steal of a black woman's signature song. Tracy doesn't think so. Combs explained it was his favorite song growing up and he did it as a tribute to Tracy, nothing more. Some people are just so full of hate that they can never see anything positive in anything. All they see is race and hate.
I likr this song. It reminds me of my daughter who is at that point in her life that she makes some important decisions - stay and be tormentef or leave and live! May God help her to leave and come and live with her dad. I love her a lot❤. She's my princess!
Being 59 years old- I'm pretty sure I'll be in the grave before this song ever will. It's simple, it's sad, it's true and it can be played on the largest stage with only a guitar and Tracy's splendid voice. I think we all had a 'Fast Car' in our live.
"You ain't gonna go that soon dear brother Thomas. I PRAY for a long wholesome life for you and loads & loads of LOVE, JOY, PEACE & PROSPERITY always! GOD BLESS you always!" 🤗❤️🙏🏼🙌🏼
There's is something about this song that makes me cry remember I was in a shelter homeless work was hard too find with a girlfriend and a child on the way am glad grateful today a home two grown children I love this song
This song was my anthem of hope when I was 14! Growing up in addiction, poverty, and a broken home I wasn’t suppose to make it.....but here I am! I haven’t heard the song in years but It came on the radio this morning taking my husband to work and I just broke down! What a whirlwind of emotions! Thank you Tracy for this beautiful song that forever changed a lost broken little boy that is now a grown very successful blessed man!
I love this song, listen to it every day, to remind me where I come from, sometimes I cry because I know without Gods grace and mercy I would still be sleeping on the streets
This is one of the most beautiful, honest, heartbreaking songs I have ever heard. I know how to play it, but I cannot make it through this song without tearing up. I hate when people request it because it physically hurts me to perform this song. I can’t explain it.
Your Dad is still with you inside you. You will hear his voice in your thoughts. Find yourself acting like him. Doing something the way he did it. Beyond the grief you will find him still with you.
