I probably discovered Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” as a teenager, which is why it surprises me to hear that the song actually came out in 1988. That means I was eight years old when it was released and twice as old when I started listening to it. “Fast Car” has been a part of my library of MP3s for decades. While many songs get worn out and overplayed over the years, “Fast Car” is one that has endured. I couldn’t tell you if the song has won any awards, I can only attest to the fact that, for me and countless others, it has a timeless quality.
“Fast Car” is making a splash again because country star Luke Combs recently dropped a cover of the song, and it has dominated the music charts. It’s an interesting take on the song, that, frankly, is inferior to the original, but I get it.
Naturally, the perpetually triggered left had to take issue with the cover’s success.
“As Luke Combs’s hit cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ dominates the country charts, it’s bringing up some complicated emotions in fans & singers who know that Chapman, as a queer Black woman, would have an almost zero chance at that achievement herself,” lamented Washington Post entertainment writer Emily Yahr.
But is that really the case? To hear Yahr tell it, Chapman was an obscure singer/songwriter who was never able to achieve success because of her race and sexual orientation. Except, that’s not anything close to being the truth. As Twitter users have pointed out in response to Yahr’s tweet of her article, “Fast Car” was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Chapman won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. In total, she has 13 Grammy Award nominations and she won the award four times.
Would Chapman have ever been a contender to top the Country Music charts? Well, no, of course not. But that has nothing to do with her race or sexual orientation, but the fact that she wasn’t a country artist. End of story.
Moreover, the popularity of Combs’s cover version of the song has certainly benefited Chapman. Not only does she receive royalties from the new version’s profits, but her original recording has also climbed the iTunes Charts. The success of Combs’ version is as much her triumph as it is his. Yet, the race-obsessed radical left wants to taint it, politicize it, and probably accuse Combs of racial appropriation. The re-emergence of “Fast Car” into the public consciousness is, apparently, not a cause for celebration, but a reflection of America’s racism, because, according to Yahr, Chapman could never achieve the success that Combs did with her song.
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Even Chapman doesn’t see it the way the race-baiters do. “I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there. I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car,’” she said in a statement to Billboard.
Perhaps the radical left can get over its need to lament the success of the cover and see it as a remarkable achievement for Chapman: she wrote a song that has stayed relevant for decades.
