The legacy of “Fast Car”: How Tracy Chapman gave voice to a generation of Black lesbians (and everyone else)

The story according to folklore goes a bit like this: at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday concert, Stevie Wonder experienced a technical difficulty that delayed his scheduled performance. A 24 year-old newcomer named Tracy Chapman, already on stage after singing three of her songs, was tasked with keeping the audience occupied during this brief intermission.

This led her to sing two more of her songs, one of which included “Fast Car.” Despite the audible nerves in her voice, Chapman serenaded the crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see, equipped with nothing but a mic and her guitar in hand. That performance alone would drive the song into superstardom.

For a little over three decades now, fans of “Fast Car” have been equally entranced as the audience at Mandela concert by Chapman’s song about an escapist fantasy of leaving a life of poverty and monotony behind. There’s a tragic timelessness to the song; A weariness that transcends across generations and races. The abundance of genre crossing covers over the years including the most recent one by country crooner Luke Combs, is a testament to the universality of the despair Chapman was singing about.

However, Chapman’s identity as a queer Black woman adds dimensions to the song that accentuates its melancholy. Often “working class” is used by intelligentsia as a euphemism for “white.” Especially in the folk genre, one dominated by the sorrows of poor whites, Chapman’s continued impact over the category even in her absence necessitates its own kind of mythology.

Her self titled debut is filled with songs about the lives of poor Black people. Its opener “Talking About Revolution” has the line “poor people gonna rise up/

And take what’s theirs.” She covers the topic of racist violence in her songs “Behind the Wall” and “Across the Line” where she sings about a race riot that breaks out after a little Black girl is assaulted saying “Newspaper prints the story/ And racist tempers fly/ Next day it starts a riot.”

It’s “Fast Car” that persists as her most beloved song. The second track on her debut album captures the emotion that exists between faith and delusion that only chronic poverty can inspire. The fatiguing feeling of trying to outpace the hamster wheel that is capitalism. Like many people, Chapman is a reluctant participant in the American dream, becoming ensnared in the prosperity gospel that sustains the country.

Chapman sings about the endless plans she has to free both her and her partner from a life of financial despair in such lines like “I been working at the convenience store/ Managed to save just a little bit of money.” “I work in a market as a checkout girl,” “I got a job that pays all our bills.” Some people have said that calling “Fast Car” a love song misses the point, but what is love if not the desire to alleviate the burdens of the person you care for?

The chorus is of course what makes the song such a crowd pleaser. The passion and velocity for which Chapman belts it out allows the listener to feel like they’re right there in the car with her. For a brief moment, you can imagine being intoxicated by the speed, by the feeling of the wind blowing through your hair, by the passion and love you have for the person sitting right beside you in the driver’s seat, you truly believe that you could be invincible or maybe just simply “someone.”

But then reality settles in and sometimes the car feels more like the one that Thelma and Louise drives off the cliff at the end of the film, knowing that the imminence of death doesn’t compare to the violence of the state.

The recent resurgence of the song, in part because of Combs’ critically acclaimed cover, arrives at a curious time culturally when the thick fog of socioeconomic despair caused by rising inflation, war spending, and student loan debt amongst other things, has made any feeling of hope seem like a betrayal to your senses.

That dreaming is a futile exercise in naivete. Even in Chapman’s song, the life she wants to live is so painstakingly meager: “Maybe together we can get somewhere/ Anyplace is better.” “And we’ll move out of the shelter/ Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs.”

“Fast Car’s” existence as a universally beloved tune sometimes obscures just how devastating it is. Since the now 59 years old Chapman’s folk hero’s return to the spotlight after years of reclusion at this past Grammys to perform the song with Combs, I (and many others evidenced by its appearance on Billboard) have been listening to the song non stop.

To borrow something that comedian Mindy Kaling said about another song: “you can cry to it, you can run to it, and you can party to it.” I oscillate between hopelessness and optimism when listening to “Fast Car.” I want to believe that they packed up their things and left their life of near destitution Good Will Hunting style. I want to believe that there’s a world much better than this one that’s just a drive away.

Hanna Phifer is a journalist and critic based in Charlotte, North Carolina.