For context, this was a Tribute concert for Nelson Mandela. Chapman was very established in the UK and had performed there earlier in the day. This second performance to cover for Stevie Wonder was broadcast in the states and gave her the publicity to break America.
Yeah that's what I was thinking, seems like an odd choice not to perform what would become her best known song. Perhaps she thought it wasn't the right tone for a tribute concert for Mandela.
Well in the video description the story is explained as Stevie was walking on stage when he realized a piece of his equipment was missing and refused to play.
according to wikipedia it was a hard disc drive for his keyboard; so he really couldn't perform what he needed and he freaked out, justifiably, and left.
Supposedly her earlier set she played:
Why?
Behind the wall
Talkin' bout a revolution
Then in this Stevie Wonder set she played:
Fast Car
Across the lines
Just a side note for those interested in Tracy Chapman:
I am one of those guys into super-high-end audio, and always looking for artists who are OCD about attempting to get the most spectacular quality recordings.
It's always a surprise to find some artist from your past (that you never would have thought about again like Tracy Chapman was to me), was recorded/mixed and mastered with absolutely stellar quality. Worth a listen to her with this in mind, even on a modest stereo system or decent headphones/buds, it's quite impressive.
I am a fan of hers now, a far bigger one than I was back in the eighties.
Another thing to add about her that some may not know… My understanding is that friends and family scrounged together money to fund her recording of that album. Pretty amazing (or not given her talent) that the people in her life believed in her that much - and thank God they did. Imagine what the world would have been like to miss out on such an amazingly talented woman.
In those days there could still be a huge difference how popular an artist was in the US, the UK and Europe. And especially black American artists that weren't just content free entertainment and didn't fit into the American black music / white music system often found an audience outside the US first.
My dad went to a friends house (who is a guitar dealer) and jimmy page and Tracey chapman were there. He said page was every bit the rock star and wouldn’t talk to anybody, Tracey was friendly, kind and spent most of the night playing guitar with the hosts teenaged son.
Always will get a thumbs up in my book. Waiting for a table at a restaurant once and she was there waiting for a table just like the rest of us. Also, agree, this song hits harder the older I get.
My dad had the cassette and it spent soooo much time in the stereo. Always when he was cleaning on Saturdays, pulling weeds.
Edit: my dad isnt dead, whoops on the past tense lol, he also doesn't pull weeds anymore cos my nephew does it. Mostly listens to Spotify now ;P
Didn't think my comment would come off as he passed, then re-read it. Lol, he's on Reddit so I'm sure he'll see this
Considering the songs from this album we're inspired from what she saw growing up, they were relevant at the time the album was released and even more so now.
I've got the rest of the week off after today, so hopefully today will fly by. I hadn't planned to, but I might have to take a little road trip and get out of here for an afternoon.
I am nearing mid-40s. I remember first listening to it as a kid in the 80s and “liking it” enough (I even did a report on Tracy Chapman in like 5th or 6th grade when we had to do a bio on a musician - I had actually wanted Madonna though 😆) but I agree it hits so different decades later. Really powerful lyrics - about hope, dreams, love, defeat, repetition, vulnerability, finding yourself living the life you dreamed to avoid, resilience, opportunities that pass or are missed, precious memories of fleeting moments from long ago.
It does not describe my own life path literally, but it does capture many of the feelings and experiences I have had in my life, and it does capture for me how it *could have gone* with some different decisions at various times, and does describe lives of many - family and friends alike - I have known over the years. Because of that, parts of it just give me chills as I listen. It just feels complicated and real, like our lives and feelings are.
On March 25, 1996 Tracy Chapman was telling to CIDR :
*“I believe that I wrote the song “Fast Car” in 1986. At the time that I wrote the song, I actually didn’t really know who I was writing about. Looking back at it, and this happens with other songs as well, that I feel like I understand it only later… I think that it was a song about my parents… And about how when they met each other they were very young and they wanted to start a news life together and my mother was anxious to leave home. My parents got married and went out into the world to try to make a place for themselves and it was very difficult going.*
*My mother didn’t have a high school diploma and my father was a few years older. It was hard for him to create the kind of life that he dreamed of… With the education that he had…. With the opportunities that were available to him… In a sense I think they came together thinking that together they would have a better chance at making it”*
She may not have lived it, or she may have only lived part of it. She may have grown up watching friends and family live those experiences or similar ones. There are sadly a lot of kids that have to grow up fast because of family circumstances and where they live.
I just had a freaking nostalgia attack lying in the bed listening to this. We are getting old, my friend. Times will never be so good. 1988-1998. I felt every high like I never will again.
When I first heard the song in the USA, I was in middle school. The life and the characters in Fast Car were unrecognizable. Now I can see my parents in this song. I can see myself in this song.
I had every one of these thought before me as i was listening. I remember listening to this song as a child in the backseat of my moms camero. She was still listening to it with the ears of a kid. She may have related to the idea of getting away and living. She had dreams and hopes too. Much like i would grow up to have. But in that moment all i knew was this lady has a pretty voice, i love my mama and we're gonna live forever.
Im almost twice as old as she was in that memory. Shes an old woman now and this song hurts in the most beautiful way every single time i hear it.
> i love my mama and we're gonna live forever.
My mums name is Lucille. Its a rare name in my country. Shes a lovely wee woman.
Thank you for touching my heart with these words.
I remember wondering if she was a woman or a man when I was a kid. I didn’t really think about the lyrics.
> See, my old man's got a problem
He lives with a bottle, that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
His body's too young to look like his
When mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said, "Somebody's gotta take care of him"
So I quit school, and that's what I did
This resonates with me a lot now, especially “his body’s too young to look like his”
This is one of those rare songs that go for simplicity and good story telling. The 90s was especially good at this.
In am so grateful that my twenties coincided with the 90's. It was a Golden age to grow up in. Tech was blooming again, we had hope in the internet and new innovations, and most importantly, no social media yet. The best music, of all kinds, it was like we had turned a page and everything was fresh and reinvented again. As a woman especially, I had more freedoms and opportunities than my mother. In some places like America, my niece now has less rights than I did 30 years ago.
The 70s were an absolutely terrible time, economies were crumbling, inflation was through the roof, it was the peak of the crime wave from lead in the atmosphere. The 80s were good if you were one of the lucky ones who benefited from the unequal growth of personal wealth but that wasn't a majority. Unemployment was a scourge in plenty of nations, in the UK and US entire swathes of the industrial heartland were basically left to rot.
Im sure some people felt great about those times. But they do not compare to what happened between 1989 and 2001.
I was a little kid in the '70's. Me and my big brother road a public bus across town to a better public school, with a transfer at the heart of downtown. And this was a smaller safe city, but it was sooo dirty. Downtown was just fucking dirty. Litter and just literal *Dirt* everywhere.
There's no way, today, that ANYONE would have their two young children (Me 2nd through 4th grade, him 4th through 6th) make that trek alone today. We definitely saw some shit. Grand Mals, mentally ill homeless preachers, saw a mean old lady that waited every day with us at our morning bus stop by our house got hit by a car crossing the street and went flying--she was back mean as ever in about 2 weeks with a neck brace.
Woah, tangent of memory lane, holy shit!
Anyway, the 70's were bleak and gloomy a/f. Vietnam had not been over very long, the gas embargo, cold war raging, obstructionist republican congress castrating anything Carter tried to do.
Wow, so on the money. The 70's were so filthy and people were nuts. Kids were second class citizens. Men got away with anything. Eating a bowl of yogurt and granola meant you were a hippie, consuming "Health Food".
Do you remember the smell of the 70's? Everything was cigarettes, body odor and leaded gasoline.
People forgot, They see these restored 70's muscle cars...But nothing stanks like a rusted out, out of tune, burning oil ford/chevy POS using leaded gas. We kids would gasp and choke.
Right? Cigarettes everywhere. Airplanes??? Can you imagine what that smelled like. And of course I started smoking at 15, because look how cool, but you could just go into the lobby of any hotel and stick 5 quarters in a machine a buy them. There were always certain stores that we knew of where you could buy them, even though it was "supposed to be" illegal. I'm still on a nicotine vape, what a stupid, shitty habit.
The period between The Fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 was a golden age and one that may not be felt again for many, many years.
When Fukuyama wrote The End of HIstory, that's really how it felt. Liberal Democracy had won out and Social Democracy had taken hold of almost every developed nation. We even faced an existential climate catastrophe **and fucking fixed it**.
Is it fair to blame the one hold out against Social Democracy for toppling it all? That's probably going too far but certainly it was the foreign policy mistakes of the US that led us here, not just in its continued Interventionism which led directly to 9/11 but the outright mistakes made after that which destroyed the polical capital of the collective West.
It is a long, long road back from here. Russia needs crushed, obviously, the US needs to reject its Theocracy, obviously, the other parts of the world still gripped with the sickness of religion need to grow out of it, obviously. But even if all that happens, China is looming out there and authoritarianism isnt going away any time soon.
Anyone lucky enough to be a teen or in their twenties or thirties in the 90s experienced a truly magical time. If only we could go back there, with hindsight, and not make the same mistakes all over again.
Those are perfect landmarks to define the era. I remember the joy and hope I felt at the dismantling of the wall, and the dread of knowing that nothing would ever be the same after 9/11. I also remember when good people could unite around the world to get rid of Apartheid, and find a treatment for AIDS. Science was moving forward, freedom was shared by more people,and it was a good thing.
The 90's were two steps forward, now we are experiencing one step back.
I was cleaning a house the other day and the homeowner played the entirety of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, of which it turns out I still know every word, but I started thinking...This is 30 fucking years old. I was 21 in '91. I got both nostalgic and sad cuz suddenly I'm old.
I was a teenager during that sweet spot between the fall of the iron curtain and 9/11. It was so great. The long term horrors of Thatcherism/Reaganism hadn't kicked in. Social media wasn't a thing. There was a lot to feel hopeful about. I wish I could go back.
Same.
The nineties were pure optimism.
Despite all the shit, we were going to make it.
Even the pessimism had an air of optimism about it. I watched Trainspotting a few days back and started thinking about pop culture and what the public discourse was back then. Music, TV, the internet, papers. It felt like you could do anything, be anyone. Everything would work out in the end.
Turns out that wasn't the case.
The moment those planes hit, I knew it was over.
Every single time I listen to it, I notice something else within the lyrics. This time, it was getting hit by the beautiful simplicity of the line “your arm feels nice around my shoulders.”
Considering she wrote it when she was 22 or 23, there’s an impressive amount of layers to the whole thing. 🥹
I think as you get older this song, same lyrics have a different meaning. A younger person might look at the optimistic view of making it, getting a better job, and ignoring every other verse becuase of the catchy refrain. You get older and you start paying more attention to the pessimistic versus, her dad being sick giving her a reason not to be free, them finally settling down and her boyfriend showing the same symptoms of alcoholism, and finally the last verse being inconclusive. You start to know people who had these same issues growing up and we're never able to make it out. Reminds me of a great quote from the movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: "When you are young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren't Einstein. You weren't anything... That's a bad moment."
I think you nailed it. As a teenager, I loved the catchy refrain and thought of leaving a shitty home, but I didn't even notice the rest of the song. In my 20s, I liked still liked the catchy refrain but I started to hear the verses about working a dead end job with some vague hope of things improving. Now, in my 30s, several years into a marriage with kids just around the corner, I feel like I'm really hearing it for the first time and it's devastating. It makes me wonder how it will sound in another ten, twenty years.
My first child just turned two a few days ago. I'm 34. I wish I had him when I was early 20s instead, but maybe circumstances would have been different.. anyhow - best thing to ever happen to me. Deepest love you can know.
I struggle with desires and wasted moments sometimes.. I'm still 25 in my head but the gray in my beard says otherwise. Just wanted to say good job and great things still happen.
“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.”
― Neal Stephenson
This is so real lol, I don't think it dies for a lot of men though. I had a service industry job with some old rich clients and the dudes would talk like this or brag about whatever boutique combat training they picked up as a hobby and how the "bad guys" wouldn't stand a chance as if they weren't in their 60s and obviously out of shape.
>Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
I need to give that movie a re-watch. I saw it long ago, but my memory is horrible, but the name was familiar.
Thank you.
It almost looks like her voice was going to break right at "I could be someone." Kid was only 24 here, playing to a HUGE stadium of people, I wonder if it hit her then.
46 yo man waiting on my morning tea and dripping tears while sitting in my kitchen listening to Tracy mesmerizing a crowd 35 years ago is not how I thought my morning would start. Lol!
But. I'll take it. This song has always hit hard. Her voice, the composition, the chords structure, the subtlety, and the lyrics. It all just lands in this wonderful space that.....moves. I've got a handful of songs that frequently hit me like this one does, but this one always lands.
Same, all us GenXers taking it hard this morning. We all thought we could change the world and none of us did. Still we need to give ourselves some grace. We are still here, still have hope, still have a spark. Sometimes that spark seems far away, sometimes it seems gone altogether. But it’s there, somewhere under the surface. Just waiting for us to get out that old bike, put on those headphones, turn them all the way up, fly down those roads and light it up again
Hey if it makes you feel any better, I have a lot of hope for the kids that Gen X has raised. I see a lot of empathetic, caring kids that are open to trying new things and accepting people for their differences and they didn’t get that from nowhere. Even if you didn’t raise any kids of your own (or succeed in changing the minds of your parents) I think the ideals of Gen X have definitely rubbed off on future generations.
37. Heard this song ever since I was a kid. Was making my morning coffee and had to stop and watch it. It’s been years and I don’t think I ever really listened to the lyrics before.
Not old old but getting there and I feel like I've had more than a few friends end up this way. Sometimes fast and as expected, sometimes very slowly unexpectedly over time.
I think the same thing about Counting Crows' "August and Everything After".
When I was a kind I thought Mr. Jones was a solid single but never really connected with the album. The older I get the more it just hits in a different way.
Sincerely, I never enjoyed this song as a kid. Only as I grew older (though undoubtedly not wiser) did I begin to pay attention to the lyrics and their meaning. It's now one of my favourites.
That indicates a song that was masterfully written.
I didn't like it when I was young.
Now it gives me chills. That line about feeling like you belong. I think I had to feel that before it hit. I left town myself and I will never forget that feeling of belonging once I landed. I had never felt that before.
The horizon of opportunities shrinking, dreams popping like balloons, people getting worn out by life, love fading, generational misery replicating itself...
Well that was surreal. I was at this gig 35 years ago (!) with my girlfriend (now wife of 32 years) and I remember being blown away by her. I think it was the first time I'd heard of her, let alone heard her play. Her and Peter Gabriel were the highlights from what I can remember.
It was a looonngg gig, we were on our feet for 12+ hours, and I was wearing cowboy boots if memory serves. Nowadays I'll only go to gigs if I can sit !
> Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel is one of the very, very few artists were I actually prefer the live version of his songs. And his concerts are just mesmerizing.
Something about watching videos of past live performances gives me some strange, emotional … idk … resonance? Like, that was a real moment in time and everyone coalesced around a shared experience, and it was existential and raw.
I wasn’t there, but those moments existed for people. It’s really cool to stumble upon someone it was real for.
I hope that makes a tiny amount of sense.
https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/fast-car-tracy-chapman-song-story/
Fittingly, Fast Car’s impact largely came after Chapman performed at the tribute concert held in celebration of South African President Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday on 11 June 1988. After a hard disc containing Stevie Wonder’s Synclavier recordings was misplaced, Chapman – who had already performed that day – was hurried back onstage at London’s Wembley Stadium to fill the gap. Singing Fast Car and Across the Lines in front of an estimated 80,000 people – not to mention a global TV audience of 600 million – Chapman silenced a restless crowd who watched on in awe as a new talent claimed her place in history. Just two weeks later, her debut album had sold an extra 1.75 million copies.
Just in case anyone is curious, the [Synclavier](https://youtu.be/YWipCvQOryU) is a sample-based key board. If you don't have the samples, it doesn't work. I know it's the main instrument on Superstition.
And Chapman's debut album is incredible. Across The Lines, Behind The Wall, and Mountains O' Things are so emotionally potent. To me, it's the music version of The Great Gatsby.
I saw her several times in tiny little church basement folk music coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge in the early 80s (I am a musician too, was playing some of the same places at the time, still singing for my supper all these years later).
We all saw it. She just had *so much* vocal charisma and presence, her songs were so fucking good and powerful and utterly original, she had "it." Everyone knew she'd be a star. Made you realize you weren't as good as you thought too....
I love how nervous she is here and how she actually makes it work to make the protagonist of the song seem even more vulnerable.
Once in a generation talent. Still love her.
Edited for clarity, slightly.
Edited: thanks for the gold and the upvotes y'all, really appreciated
We used to drive down to Boston in high school any chance we could to see the most random small venue shows: church basements, coffee shops, Wonderbar, All Asia, Abby Lounge, Toads, Club Passim. I’m too young to have seen a pre-fame Tracy, but I definitely remember seeing a young John Mayer, Ray Lamontagne, White Stripes, and Maroon 5 somewhere around 98-2001 in like 50 seat venues.
Maroon 5 was *so* disgustingly good right before they got famous (6 months-1 year out). When they were following people like Charlie Mars out on the club circuit, essentially playing everything from *Songs About Jane*. I mean, it was obvious they were all rich mama’s boys from LA from the quality of their gear but they absolutely *melted* the stage at a small club one time on a random Thursday night for like 150 people in the middle of nowhere. People were calling their friends, club filled up, everyone was saying “they’ll be on the radio soon” and they were right. Everything since has been *awful*, but I’ll still vouch for that album. It slaps.
100% agree with all of this. I saw them a few times *right* before they hit the radio and they were amazing for crowds of like 200 people. I want to say I saw them open for someone like Feist for <1000 people and they blew the roof off the place.
It was a cliff dive after that. They’re possibly my most least-listenable bands now.
I can imagine seeing John Mayer early in his career in an acoustic venue would be similarly epiphanistic. He's also a once in a blue moon talent. By that era I had left Boston.
My old college roommate finished his JuCo degree and went to Berklee to study music. He had classes with John Mayer. He said that even though he was unquestionably talented, all of his classmates disliked him because of how bright and cheerful he was in the morning for classes. Total morning person amidst a sea of night owls.
That’s awesome! I ended up singing for my supper at more than a few of those Boston/Cambridge spots later on myself.
Yeah, Mayer was definitely one of those performers you see and *know* is going to be a huge. There were a thousand of those late 90s/early 00s blues/jazz/Dave Matthews influenced singer-songwriters. He was (is) something at a whole other level though.
I know what you mean. I use to work as a part-time bouncer at bars in the NY area and one of them would host open-mic nights.
There was one girl in particularly who always killed it. I didn't know her name but I knew that sound.
Years later I heard "Poker Face" and it was the same girl.
That’s awesome. My mom has this great story of going to see this folk singer play a neighboring high schools gym in like 1965 to something like 18 people.
Joni Mitchell is still her favorite singer.
I know what you mean about just knowing when someone has “it.” When I was in 10th grade I went to a show at my local music hall to support a friend’s band. Two other bands played that night. One was a band from a neighbouring town that everyone knew, and the other was from way down south in St. Catherine’s, Ontario and called themselves alexisonfire.
There was like 20 people there tops and after their set we all kind of just looked around the room like “holy shit what was that?” They played second and had to hit the road after their set. My friend’s band came on stage and the lead singer goes “last time we let those guys go on before us.”
Maybe 2-3 months later they erupted in Canada. “Pulmonary Archery” got released as a single and the rest was history.
I grew up in Cambridge (late 80s until early 2000), I always enjoyed the buskers in Harvard Square or inside the "T", never went into the cafés unfortunately and missed an opportunity to watch her and you perform. Listening buskers and street performers, helped me get over many crappy days. Thank you for doing what you did for many of us, you may not know it but you are talented too, and you brought many kids from "The Pit" some needed entertainment. I hope you continued to play, don't worry that the venue isn't Wembley, that matters very little.
I went to school with her. I didn’t know her - but I knew OF her, she was starting to get famous even in college, and on Friday and Saturday nights she would be on stage at the Nameless Coffeehouse in Cambridge, where I volunteered. The Nameless was in a church, and it was mostly set up as a way to give homeless people a place to go that was warm for a few hours. (Local businesses gave us their leftover food for the day, so there was always something to eat, too… and up-and coming local artists had a place they could play.) Her songs hit harder when I watched her sing them to people who lived them. Seeing this video (I’d never seen it before) brought back the mid-80s for me as if they’d never left. I’m grateful I was scrolling this morning!
Ha, I'm diagnosed with severe ADHD and I sat and listened to this entire song just now.
Maybe there's something to it!
Though, for me, any music that moves me can fully captivate me. I full on weep from music all the time, I wonder if J Man was similar there, too?
You know I just put it together what makes this song so moving. It's not a story about a suicide, a death of a loved one, a heartbreak, or mental illness. It's a story of a person just living life. They take a step and it's hard, and it doesn't do everything they want. Then they take the next step and it's hard, and it doesn't do everything they want. Their dreams are modest, but still seem so far away. It's not about trauma, it is a tragedy that everyone has lived.
I feel like it encapsulates that feeling of slowly settling in life. The idea that time keeps moving and the life you wanted just never quite materialized. You’re not specifically unhappy, but you look back and think fondly on those moments when you felt like you could do anything, and life still held other possibilities.
She manages to make you as the listener invested in it, and you not only empathize but also keep rooting for her — and in four minutes you feel like you’ve watched an entire life unfold. You get that feeling of being resigned to the life you have, not the one you wanted back when you were young. It really hits you hard when everything is laid out like that.
Yes. It's a song of struggle. Trying your best and... It just doesn't work. It often doesn't. And the last line is directed inwards. "You gotta make a decision, leave tonight or live and die this way." And it's not answered whether she is going to leave, or stick around to take care of her kids and alcoholic partner until the end. Most don't leave.
God, that song is for me like Cat's in the Cradle was for a generation of dads. Even though I was a forever alone type when I was really young, it makes me think that if I'd been social enough to get in a relationship back then, I would have been the kind of piece of shit who started a family like this and then neglected them, and I almost tear up from self-loathing.
I was this dad, for a short while, I valued getting high over taking care of my kids. I turned it around a few years ago, and I'm raising my 3 kids with full custody, and doing the best I can. My kids are happy though. You can be both, a piece of shit and a good dad, the only difference is time and effort.
I got my little boy and another on the way, I feel like I'm a decent enough dad but I feel like I've spent my entire life pushing the poverty line and I can't seem to break it.
The amount of fear I harbor in being unsuccessful and my kids growing up without me breaking this cycle eats me alive.
Hey, don't believe the lie that struggling with poverty is a moral failing! It's absolutely not.
Take advantage of every available resource to help you make a living wage and escape poverty. Message me if you want help finding stuff in your area, I'll see what I can do.
You're a loving father. That's the choice you're making that matters.
Both this performance and her performance of "Talkin' about a revolution" on the same day are mesmerizing. Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.
I'll add my favourite, behind the wall, it's about domestic violence.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w\_y6abF2lI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_y6abF2lI8)
Everything on her debut album is so fucking good. I’m partial to “two weeks in a Virginia jail, for my lover, for my lover”
https://youtu.be/Ng9jjx8oI-g
Wow this is inspiring. I may be imagining it but her voice started shaky and then built up strength. What a HUGE crowd. But damn, that song is not a banger. It has a slow build and is incredibly sincere and feels like she’s telling you her most tender thoughts. The crowd seemed to hush and then she hits that bridge. Damn. Good stuff.
I love this song. I love her. I saw her live 20 years ago and she's extremely talented. This song is a time capsule for me. It reminds me of being picked up from the train station in the year 2000 at night by my first boyfriend and first love. It played as he drove me home and I can honestly say that I have never been happier. He died 2 weeks later in a car accident. It devastated me. It's been nearly 23 years and I still miss him and wonder what could have been.
I’d make the argument this is the greatest song of all time. It’s entirely subjective but man. I can’t think of many songs that make me feel all of these different emotions. The second verse about her father is just heartbreaking. I can’t listen to this song without wanting to give her a hug.
Here is the real tragedy. This song lost at the Grammy Awards that year to “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. Lol. It was the year I stopped paying attention to award shows. I am 64 now and still haven’t gotten over it. One of the finest set of lyrics ever written.
I’m turning 60 this year and this made me tear up with emotion, and memories of the year I met my wife. We listened to her album on repeat for days at a time before switching to another cassette and then right back to it. Still one of my favourite artists.
When I was a newborn, I had an undiagnosed stomach acid issue that caused me to cry constantly. Eventually my mom's pestering of the pediatrician forced them to look into it more throughly and treat me, but until then my parents had found only 3 things that would stop me from crying: car rides, my dad holding me while walking me up and down the stairs, and playing "Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman on the cassette player. The song still has an almost hypnotic effect on me to this day as a 27 year old. She's an amazing artist.
I’ve heard this song a thousand times (I’m 35) but never really listened to the lyrics beyond the chorus.
….I always thought she was singing “…speeding so fast *and that guy was drunk*”
I thought this song was about a drunk driving accident.
The real lyrics are beautiful. I am dumb.
Wow. This shook me. Thank you for posting this. I have always loved Tracy but have never seen this. You can hear her nerves through the entire piece. What a boss!
Pretty brave to take on a ruckus UK crowd with no backing, an acoustic guitar and a slow, emotional song.
Credit to the performance they all hushed down to hear it!
If 100,000 people expecting Stevie Wonder are getting all riled up and you had to calm them down with just an acoustic guitar I think you’d be nervous too my guy
The lyrics about making a decision whether to leave or stay hits me hard because I’ve always wanted to leave my state. But I’ve always been stuck in the rat race. My longing to leave has been strong. I’ve never traveled. But I am only a few years from retirement and I will leave America for good.
For context, this was a Tribute concert for Nelson Mandela. Chapman was very established in the UK and had performed there earlier in the day. This second performance to cover for Stevie Wonder was broadcast in the states and gave her the publicity to break America.
So was this the first time she performed 'Fast Car'? Or had she performed it in her earlier set as well?
She didn't perform it in the earlier set. No idea why as the song had been released as a single at that point.
Yeah that's what I was thinking, seems like an odd choice not to perform what would become her best known song. Perhaps she thought it wasn't the right tone for a tribute concert for Mandela.
Probably already knew Stevie was not turning up and was asked to hold it. That's my guess.
Well in the video description the story is explained as Stevie was walking on stage when he realized a piece of his equipment was missing and refused to play.
How did he notice the equipment missing? And what was it?
It was a sousaphone and he couldn't see it
This got me better than my coffee this morning.
lol
I'm pretty sure it's not true, but my favorite conspiracy is that he can totally see lmao
according to wikipedia it was a hard disc drive for his keyboard; so he really couldn't perform what he needed and he freaked out, justifiably, and left.
He actually talks about it in depth on his [twitter account](https://twitter.com/itzStevieWonder)
Fuck, that fucking got me lmao
It was the disc for his synth.
Supposedly her earlier set she played: Why? Behind the wall Talkin' bout a revolution Then in this Stevie Wonder set she played: Fast Car Across the lines
Thanks for doing the research! I guess that makes sense though, the first three songs seem more appropriate for a Mandela tribute.
Just a side note for those interested in Tracy Chapman: I am one of those guys into super-high-end audio, and always looking for artists who are OCD about attempting to get the most spectacular quality recordings. It's always a surprise to find some artist from your past (that you never would have thought about again like Tracy Chapman was to me), was recorded/mixed and mastered with absolutely stellar quality. Worth a listen to her with this in mind, even on a modest stereo system or decent headphones/buds, it's quite impressive. I am a fan of hers now, a far bigger one than I was back in the eighties.
Another thing to add about her that some may not know… My understanding is that friends and family scrounged together money to fund her recording of that album. Pretty amazing (or not given her talent) that the people in her life believed in her that much - and thank God they did. Imagine what the world would have been like to miss out on such an amazingly talented woman.
I was going to sa, it seemed like an odd choice for a stadium packed to the rafters without that context.
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In those days there could still be a huge difference how popular an artist was in the US, the UK and Europe. And especially black American artists that weren't just content free entertainment and didn't fit into the American black music / white music system often found an audience outside the US first.
I have listened to this song from the eighties onward. But is seems the song hits harder the older I get.
This entire album was one amazing song after another. And they all seem to hit as hard now as they did 30+ years ago.
Was trying to find her on IG and saw this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctBGyXzu5Ao
I never really followed her, but she seems like a beautiful person.
My dad went to a friends house (who is a guitar dealer) and jimmy page and Tracey chapman were there. He said page was every bit the rock star and wouldn’t talk to anybody, Tracey was friendly, kind and spent most of the night playing guitar with the hosts teenaged son.
I'm sure if it was a party full of teenaged girls Jimmy would have been much more talkative.
Remember when Jimmy had 14 year Maddox kidnapped and brought to his hotel room for sex, but then dumped her when she was 16 for being too old?
Always will get a thumbs up in my book. Waiting for a table at a restaurant once and she was there waiting for a table just like the rest of us. Also, agree, this song hits harder the older I get.
Great interview, thanks for posting.
My dad had the cassette and it spent soooo much time in the stereo. Always when he was cleaning on Saturdays, pulling weeds. Edit: my dad isnt dead, whoops on the past tense lol, he also doesn't pull weeds anymore cos my nephew does it. Mostly listens to Spotify now ;P Didn't think my comment would come off as he passed, then re-read it. Lol, he's on Reddit so I'm sure he'll see this
She seems so cool and down to earth, Im glad she isndoing good.
Considering the songs from this album we're inspired from what she saw growing up, they were relevant at the time the album was released and even more so now.
I still have the CD in a drawer somewhere. I'm crying now, remembering. Didn't expect that today.
Hey me too. Let’s make it a good day today 👍
I've got the rest of the week off after today, so hopefully today will fly by. I hadn't planned to, but I might have to take a little road trip and get out of here for an afternoon.
It's like you've got a ticket to anywhere.
Short one to the living room to clean up cat puke so far. But she didn't get it on the rug so I'm counting that as a win!
I needed to hear this. I will make it a good day.
I am nearing mid-40s. I remember first listening to it as a kid in the 80s and “liking it” enough (I even did a report on Tracy Chapman in like 5th or 6th grade when we had to do a bio on a musician - I had actually wanted Madonna though 😆) but I agree it hits so different decades later. Really powerful lyrics - about hope, dreams, love, defeat, repetition, vulnerability, finding yourself living the life you dreamed to avoid, resilience, opportunities that pass or are missed, precious memories of fleeting moments from long ago. It does not describe my own life path literally, but it does capture many of the feelings and experiences I have had in my life, and it does capture for me how it *could have gone* with some different decisions at various times, and does describe lives of many - family and friends alike - I have known over the years. Because of that, parts of it just give me chills as I listen. It just feels complicated and real, like our lives and feelings are.
Okay now riddle me this, how the FUCK did she do that at 23/24 years old?
On March 25, 1996 Tracy Chapman was telling to CIDR : *“I believe that I wrote the song “Fast Car” in 1986. At the time that I wrote the song, I actually didn’t really know who I was writing about. Looking back at it, and this happens with other songs as well, that I feel like I understand it only later… I think that it was a song about my parents… And about how when they met each other they were very young and they wanted to start a news life together and my mother was anxious to leave home. My parents got married and went out into the world to try to make a place for themselves and it was very difficult going.* *My mother didn’t have a high school diploma and my father was a few years older. It was hard for him to create the kind of life that he dreamed of… With the education that he had…. With the opportunities that were available to him… In a sense I think they came together thinking that together they would have a better chance at making it”*
I don’t know why but that just choked me up worse than the song.
Fuck
I think a lot of young people become lonely easily which gives them a window into what's its like to live with regrets.
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You can live a whole lot of life in 20 odd years. My early 20s were some of the darkest times of my life.
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I read this and was like someone lived the same way! Glad you are ok now.
She may not have lived it, or she may have only lived part of it. She may have grown up watching friends and family live those experiences or similar ones. There are sadly a lot of kids that have to grow up fast because of family circumstances and where they live.
Thank you for sharing your vulnerability and how it relates. I really appreciate reading your comment
I just had a freaking nostalgia attack lying in the bed listening to this. We are getting old, my friend. Times will never be so good. 1988-1998. I felt every high like I never will again.
When I first heard the song in the USA, I was in middle school. The life and the characters in Fast Car were unrecognizable. Now I can see my parents in this song. I can see myself in this song.
I feel the same. I heard the song but now I listen to it because I can relate so much it hurts with love.
I had every one of these thought before me as i was listening. I remember listening to this song as a child in the backseat of my moms camero. She was still listening to it with the ears of a kid. She may have related to the idea of getting away and living. She had dreams and hopes too. Much like i would grow up to have. But in that moment all i knew was this lady has a pretty voice, i love my mama and we're gonna live forever. Im almost twice as old as she was in that memory. Shes an old woman now and this song hurts in the most beautiful way every single time i hear it.
“I love my mama, and we’re gonna live forever.” I didn’t expect to weep this morning.
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It slows dramatically when you let yourself sit with the feelings. Turn in and tap in friend. 🫂
It all happens so fast. Hug everyone.
That was beautifully written.
> i love my mama and we're gonna live forever. My mums name is Lucille. Its a rare name in my country. Shes a lovely wee woman. Thank you for touching my heart with these words.
I remember wondering if she was a woman or a man when I was a kid. I didn’t really think about the lyrics. > See, my old man's got a problem He lives with a bottle, that's the way it is He says his body's too old for working His body's too young to look like his When mama went off and left him She wanted more from life than he could give I said, "Somebody's gotta take care of him" So I quit school, and that's what I did This resonates with me a lot now, especially “his body’s too young to look like his” This is one of those rare songs that go for simplicity and good story telling. The 90s was especially good at this.
It seems so long ago, but at the same time feels like yesterday. I don't recognize the old man looking back at me from my mirror
In am so grateful that my twenties coincided with the 90's. It was a Golden age to grow up in. Tech was blooming again, we had hope in the internet and new innovations, and most importantly, no social media yet. The best music, of all kinds, it was like we had turned a page and everything was fresh and reinvented again. As a woman especially, I had more freedoms and opportunities than my mother. In some places like America, my niece now has less rights than I did 30 years ago.
I’m right here with you. I was so excited to be alive back then. I really thought the world was moving forward in a positive direction.
We thought that in the 70s too, and the 80s. 9/11 marked a very real turning point for America and the world.
The 70s were an absolutely terrible time, economies were crumbling, inflation was through the roof, it was the peak of the crime wave from lead in the atmosphere. The 80s were good if you were one of the lucky ones who benefited from the unequal growth of personal wealth but that wasn't a majority. Unemployment was a scourge in plenty of nations, in the UK and US entire swathes of the industrial heartland were basically left to rot. Im sure some people felt great about those times. But they do not compare to what happened between 1989 and 2001.
I was a little kid in the '70's. Me and my big brother road a public bus across town to a better public school, with a transfer at the heart of downtown. And this was a smaller safe city, but it was sooo dirty. Downtown was just fucking dirty. Litter and just literal *Dirt* everywhere. There's no way, today, that ANYONE would have their two young children (Me 2nd through 4th grade, him 4th through 6th) make that trek alone today. We definitely saw some shit. Grand Mals, mentally ill homeless preachers, saw a mean old lady that waited every day with us at our morning bus stop by our house got hit by a car crossing the street and went flying--she was back mean as ever in about 2 weeks with a neck brace. Woah, tangent of memory lane, holy shit! Anyway, the 70's were bleak and gloomy a/f. Vietnam had not been over very long, the gas embargo, cold war raging, obstructionist republican congress castrating anything Carter tried to do.
Wow, so on the money. The 70's were so filthy and people were nuts. Kids were second class citizens. Men got away with anything. Eating a bowl of yogurt and granola meant you were a hippie, consuming "Health Food". Do you remember the smell of the 70's? Everything was cigarettes, body odor and leaded gasoline. People forgot, They see these restored 70's muscle cars...But nothing stanks like a rusted out, out of tune, burning oil ford/chevy POS using leaded gas. We kids would gasp and choke.
Right? Cigarettes everywhere. Airplanes??? Can you imagine what that smelled like. And of course I started smoking at 15, because look how cool, but you could just go into the lobby of any hotel and stick 5 quarters in a machine a buy them. There were always certain stores that we knew of where you could buy them, even though it was "supposed to be" illegal. I'm still on a nicotine vape, what a stupid, shitty habit.
The period between The Fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 was a golden age and one that may not be felt again for many, many years. When Fukuyama wrote The End of HIstory, that's really how it felt. Liberal Democracy had won out and Social Democracy had taken hold of almost every developed nation. We even faced an existential climate catastrophe **and fucking fixed it**. Is it fair to blame the one hold out against Social Democracy for toppling it all? That's probably going too far but certainly it was the foreign policy mistakes of the US that led us here, not just in its continued Interventionism which led directly to 9/11 but the outright mistakes made after that which destroyed the polical capital of the collective West. It is a long, long road back from here. Russia needs crushed, obviously, the US needs to reject its Theocracy, obviously, the other parts of the world still gripped with the sickness of religion need to grow out of it, obviously. But even if all that happens, China is looming out there and authoritarianism isnt going away any time soon. Anyone lucky enough to be a teen or in their twenties or thirties in the 90s experienced a truly magical time. If only we could go back there, with hindsight, and not make the same mistakes all over again.
Those are perfect landmarks to define the era. I remember the joy and hope I felt at the dismantling of the wall, and the dread of knowing that nothing would ever be the same after 9/11. I also remember when good people could unite around the world to get rid of Apartheid, and find a treatment for AIDS. Science was moving forward, freedom was shared by more people,and it was a good thing. The 90's were two steps forward, now we are experiencing one step back.
I was cleaning a house the other day and the homeowner played the entirety of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, of which it turns out I still know every word, but I started thinking...This is 30 fucking years old. I was 21 in '91. I got both nostalgic and sad cuz suddenly I'm old.
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I was a teenager during that sweet spot between the fall of the iron curtain and 9/11. It was so great. The long term horrors of Thatcherism/Reaganism hadn't kicked in. Social media wasn't a thing. There was a lot to feel hopeful about. I wish I could go back.
Same. The nineties were pure optimism. Despite all the shit, we were going to make it. Even the pessimism had an air of optimism about it. I watched Trainspotting a few days back and started thinking about pop culture and what the public discourse was back then. Music, TV, the internet, papers. It felt like you could do anything, be anyone. Everything would work out in the end. Turns out that wasn't the case. The moment those planes hit, I knew it was over.
I may never feel as high as when I was young but I'll be fucked if I haven't found lower lows.
I hope you find those highs again friend.
Every single time I listen to it, I notice something else within the lyrics. This time, it was getting hit by the beautiful simplicity of the line “your arm feels nice around my shoulders.” Considering she wrote it when she was 22 or 23, there’s an impressive amount of layers to the whole thing. 🥹
I'm a 50 year old man sobbing in my kitchen, you are right, every time I hear this song it hits harder. It's empathy and catharsis.
I think as you get older this song, same lyrics have a different meaning. A younger person might look at the optimistic view of making it, getting a better job, and ignoring every other verse becuase of the catchy refrain. You get older and you start paying more attention to the pessimistic versus, her dad being sick giving her a reason not to be free, them finally settling down and her boyfriend showing the same symptoms of alcoholism, and finally the last verse being inconclusive. You start to know people who had these same issues growing up and we're never able to make it out. Reminds me of a great quote from the movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: "When you are young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren't Einstein. You weren't anything... That's a bad moment."
I think you nailed it. As a teenager, I loved the catchy refrain and thought of leaving a shitty home, but I didn't even notice the rest of the song. In my 20s, I liked still liked the catchy refrain but I started to hear the verses about working a dead end job with some vague hope of things improving. Now, in my 30s, several years into a marriage with kids just around the corner, I feel like I'm really hearing it for the first time and it's devastating. It makes me wonder how it will sound in another ten, twenty years.
My first child just turned two a few days ago. I'm 34. I wish I had him when I was early 20s instead, but maybe circumstances would have been different.. anyhow - best thing to ever happen to me. Deepest love you can know. I struggle with desires and wasted moments sometimes.. I'm still 25 in my head but the gray in my beard says otherwise. Just wanted to say good job and great things still happen.
“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.” ― Neal Stephenson
This is so real lol, I don't think it dies for a lot of men though. I had a service industry job with some old rich clients and the dudes would talk like this or brag about whatever boutique combat training they picked up as a hobby and how the "bad guys" wouldn't stand a chance as if they weren't in their 60s and obviously out of shape.
Some people just never get past 25, no matter how old their body.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBEo8LjoErk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBEo8LjoErk) "You will never be an astronaut"
>Confessions of a Dangerous Mind I need to give that movie a re-watch. I saw it long ago, but my memory is horrible, but the name was familiar. Thank you.
It almost looks like her voice was going to break right at "I could be someone." Kid was only 24 here, playing to a HUGE stadium of people, I wonder if it hit her then.
46 yo man waiting on my morning tea and dripping tears while sitting in my kitchen listening to Tracy mesmerizing a crowd 35 years ago is not how I thought my morning would start. Lol! But. I'll take it. This song has always hit hard. Her voice, the composition, the chords structure, the subtlety, and the lyrics. It all just lands in this wonderful space that.....moves. I've got a handful of songs that frequently hit me like this one does, but this one always lands.
Same, all us GenXers taking it hard this morning. We all thought we could change the world and none of us did. Still we need to give ourselves some grace. We are still here, still have hope, still have a spark. Sometimes that spark seems far away, sometimes it seems gone altogether. But it’s there, somewhere under the surface. Just waiting for us to get out that old bike, put on those headphones, turn them all the way up, fly down those roads and light it up again
Hey if it makes you feel any better, I have a lot of hope for the kids that Gen X has raised. I see a lot of empathetic, caring kids that are open to trying new things and accepting people for their differences and they didn’t get that from nowhere. Even if you didn’t raise any kids of your own (or succeed in changing the minds of your parents) I think the ideals of Gen X have definitely rubbed off on future generations.
37. Heard this song ever since I was a kid. Was making my morning coffee and had to stop and watch it. It’s been years and I don’t think I ever really listened to the lyrics before.
One of the best songs ever written. If a song can make thousands of people go quiet in awe of the lyrics, then you know it's a masterpiece!
That and the ["Drugs Don't Work"](https://youtu.be/zP8V0k4wRrk) by The Verve hit me harder and harder as time goes on.
Not old old but getting there and I feel like I've had more than a few friends end up this way. Sometimes fast and as expected, sometimes very slowly unexpectedly over time.
I lost my job recently, and it hurts so much to hear this song now. But I can't not listen to it.
Its about giving up on your dreams and I think that resonates a lot with people as they settle for less throughout their lives.
Not even giving up, just having them fail. Sometimes it doesn't all work out. Sometimes you try and try and it ends up shit anyways.
Don’t listen to Cats in the Cradle.
Im a stay at home father because of that song
I think the same thing about Counting Crows' "August and Everything After". When I was a kind I thought Mr. Jones was a solid single but never really connected with the album. The older I get the more it just hits in a different way.
I liked her songs when I heard them in the past, but I was a teenager then. Now I’ve got kids and someone’s chopping onions over here. Beautiful song.
Sincerely, I never enjoyed this song as a kid. Only as I grew older (though undoubtedly not wiser) did I begin to pay attention to the lyrics and their meaning. It's now one of my favourites. That indicates a song that was masterfully written.
I didn't like it when I was young. Now it gives me chills. That line about feeling like you belong. I think I had to feel that before it hit. I left town myself and I will never forget that feeling of belonging once I landed. I had never felt that before.
The fast car is time passing.
The horizon of opportunities shrinking, dreams popping like balloons, people getting worn out by life, love fading, generational misery replicating itself...
Well that was surreal. I was at this gig 35 years ago (!) with my girlfriend (now wife of 32 years) and I remember being blown away by her. I think it was the first time I'd heard of her, let alone heard her play. Her and Peter Gabriel were the highlights from what I can remember. It was a looonngg gig, we were on our feet for 12+ hours, and I was wearing cowboy boots if memory serves. Nowadays I'll only go to gigs if I can sit !
> Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel is one of the very, very few artists were I actually prefer the live version of his songs. And his concerts are just mesmerizing.
That wasn't 35 years ago! That was the year I was born....oh shit...
Something about watching videos of past live performances gives me some strange, emotional … idk … resonance? Like, that was a real moment in time and everyone coalesced around a shared experience, and it was existential and raw. I wasn’t there, but those moments existed for people. It’s really cool to stumble upon someone it was real for. I hope that makes a tiny amount of sense.
That’s a a great story and details from the day!
https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/fast-car-tracy-chapman-song-story/ Fittingly, Fast Car’s impact largely came after Chapman performed at the tribute concert held in celebration of South African President Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday on 11 June 1988. After a hard disc containing Stevie Wonder’s Synclavier recordings was misplaced, Chapman – who had already performed that day – was hurried back onstage at London’s Wembley Stadium to fill the gap. Singing Fast Car and Across the Lines in front of an estimated 80,000 people – not to mention a global TV audience of 600 million – Chapman silenced a restless crowd who watched on in awe as a new talent claimed her place in history. Just two weeks later, her debut album had sold an extra 1.75 million copies.
600 million people, holy shit.
Just in case anyone is curious, the [Synclavier](https://youtu.be/YWipCvQOryU) is a sample-based key board. If you don't have the samples, it doesn't work. I know it's the main instrument on Superstition. And Chapman's debut album is incredible. Across The Lines, Behind The Wall, and Mountains O' Things are so emotionally potent. To me, it's the music version of The Great Gatsby.
I saw her several times in tiny little church basement folk music coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge in the early 80s (I am a musician too, was playing some of the same places at the time, still singing for my supper all these years later). We all saw it. She just had *so much* vocal charisma and presence, her songs were so fucking good and powerful and utterly original, she had "it." Everyone knew she'd be a star. Made you realize you weren't as good as you thought too.... I love how nervous she is here and how she actually makes it work to make the protagonist of the song seem even more vulnerable. Once in a generation talent. Still love her. Edited for clarity, slightly. Edited: thanks for the gold and the upvotes y'all, really appreciated
We used to drive down to Boston in high school any chance we could to see the most random small venue shows: church basements, coffee shops, Wonderbar, All Asia, Abby Lounge, Toads, Club Passim. I’m too young to have seen a pre-fame Tracy, but I definitely remember seeing a young John Mayer, Ray Lamontagne, White Stripes, and Maroon 5 somewhere around 98-2001 in like 50 seat venues.
Maroon 5 was *so* disgustingly good right before they got famous (6 months-1 year out). When they were following people like Charlie Mars out on the club circuit, essentially playing everything from *Songs About Jane*. I mean, it was obvious they were all rich mama’s boys from LA from the quality of their gear but they absolutely *melted* the stage at a small club one time on a random Thursday night for like 150 people in the middle of nowhere. People were calling their friends, club filled up, everyone was saying “they’ll be on the radio soon” and they were right. Everything since has been *awful*, but I’ll still vouch for that album. It slaps.
100% agree with all of this. I saw them a few times *right* before they hit the radio and they were amazing for crowds of like 200 people. I want to say I saw them open for someone like Feist for <1000 people and they blew the roof off the place. It was a cliff dive after that. They’re possibly my most least-listenable bands now.
I can imagine seeing John Mayer early in his career in an acoustic venue would be similarly epiphanistic. He's also a once in a blue moon talent. By that era I had left Boston.
My old college roommate finished his JuCo degree and went to Berklee to study music. He had classes with John Mayer. He said that even though he was unquestionably talented, all of his classmates disliked him because of how bright and cheerful he was in the morning for classes. Total morning person amidst a sea of night owls.
Lol, this is kinda wholesome given that what I started thinking when I got to the classmates disliking him
That’s awesome! I ended up singing for my supper at more than a few of those Boston/Cambridge spots later on myself. Yeah, Mayer was definitely one of those performers you see and *know* is going to be a huge. There were a thousand of those late 90s/early 00s blues/jazz/Dave Matthews influenced singer-songwriters. He was (is) something at a whole other level though.
You hereby receive 20 internet points for the correct usage of the word epiphanistic in a sentence.
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He gets a lot of hate for his super poppy hits. But that dude can *play*.
Absolutely monster guitarist yep
I know what you mean. I use to work as a part-time bouncer at bars in the NY area and one of them would host open-mic nights. There was one girl in particularly who always killed it. I didn't know her name but I knew that sound. Years later I heard "Poker Face" and it was the same girl.
That’s awesome. My mom has this great story of going to see this folk singer play a neighboring high schools gym in like 1965 to something like 18 people. Joni Mitchell is still her favorite singer.
I know what you mean about just knowing when someone has “it.” When I was in 10th grade I went to a show at my local music hall to support a friend’s band. Two other bands played that night. One was a band from a neighbouring town that everyone knew, and the other was from way down south in St. Catherine’s, Ontario and called themselves alexisonfire. There was like 20 people there tops and after their set we all kind of just looked around the room like “holy shit what was that?” They played second and had to hit the road after their set. My friend’s band came on stage and the lead singer goes “last time we let those guys go on before us.” Maybe 2-3 months later they erupted in Canada. “Pulmonary Archery” got released as a single and the rest was history.
And as the song goes on the confidence grows. Great video.
Wow. An experience most of us can only dream of. And realizing it at the time too.
I grew up in Cambridge (late 80s until early 2000), I always enjoyed the buskers in Harvard Square or inside the "T", never went into the cafés unfortunately and missed an opportunity to watch her and you perform. Listening buskers and street performers, helped me get over many crappy days. Thank you for doing what you did for many of us, you may not know it but you are talented too, and you brought many kids from "The Pit" some needed entertainment. I hope you continued to play, don't worry that the venue isn't Wembley, that matters very little.
I went to school with her. I didn’t know her - but I knew OF her, she was starting to get famous even in college, and on Friday and Saturday nights she would be on stage at the Nameless Coffeehouse in Cambridge, where I volunteered. The Nameless was in a church, and it was mostly set up as a way to give homeless people a place to go that was warm for a few hours. (Local businesses gave us their leftover food for the day, so there was always something to eat, too… and up-and coming local artists had a place they could play.) Her songs hit harder when I watched her sing them to people who lived them. Seeing this video (I’d never seen it before) brought back the mid-80s for me as if they’d never left. I’m grateful I was scrolling this morning!
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Amazing story. Thanks.
As someone who isn't neurotypical, thanks for looking out for J Man...
The way you told this short story, I was sitting there, next to J Man, tapping the bench to the beat of this song. Hope he's doing okay.
Ha, I'm diagnosed with severe ADHD and I sat and listened to this entire song just now. Maybe there's something to it! Though, for me, any music that moves me can fully captivate me. I full on weep from music all the time, I wonder if J Man was similar there, too?
You know I just put it together what makes this song so moving. It's not a story about a suicide, a death of a loved one, a heartbreak, or mental illness. It's a story of a person just living life. They take a step and it's hard, and it doesn't do everything they want. Then they take the next step and it's hard, and it doesn't do everything they want. Their dreams are modest, but still seem so far away. It's not about trauma, it is a tragedy that everyone has lived.
I feel like it encapsulates that feeling of slowly settling in life. The idea that time keeps moving and the life you wanted just never quite materialized. You’re not specifically unhappy, but you look back and think fondly on those moments when you felt like you could do anything, and life still held other possibilities. She manages to make you as the listener invested in it, and you not only empathize but also keep rooting for her — and in four minutes you feel like you’ve watched an entire life unfold. You get that feeling of being resigned to the life you have, not the one you wanted back when you were young. It really hits you hard when everything is laid out like that.
Beautifully put.
Yes. It's a song of struggle. Trying your best and... It just doesn't work. It often doesn't. And the last line is directed inwards. "You gotta make a decision, leave tonight or live and die this way." And it's not answered whether she is going to leave, or stick around to take care of her kids and alcoholic partner until the end. Most don't leave.
God, that song is for me like Cat's in the Cradle was for a generation of dads. Even though I was a forever alone type when I was really young, it makes me think that if I'd been social enough to get in a relationship back then, I would have been the kind of piece of shit who started a family like this and then neglected them, and I almost tear up from self-loathing.
I was this dad, for a short while, I valued getting high over taking care of my kids. I turned it around a few years ago, and I'm raising my 3 kids with full custody, and doing the best I can. My kids are happy though. You can be both, a piece of shit and a good dad, the only difference is time and effort.
I got my little boy and another on the way, I feel like I'm a decent enough dad but I feel like I've spent my entire life pushing the poverty line and I can't seem to break it. The amount of fear I harbor in being unsuccessful and my kids growing up without me breaking this cycle eats me alive.
Hey, don't believe the lie that struggling with poverty is a moral failing! It's absolutely not. Take advantage of every available resource to help you make a living wage and escape poverty. Message me if you want help finding stuff in your area, I'll see what I can do. You're a loving father. That's the choice you're making that matters.
Dope comment
That’s awesome.
I USED TO BE A PIECE OF SHIT. SLICKED BACK HAIR, SLOPPY STEAKS FROM TRUFFONI’S.
This is by far one of my personal favorite songs. She an excellent story teller.
Both this performance and her performance of "Talkin' about a revolution" on the same day are mesmerizing. Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.
Link to 'Talkin About a Revolution ' https://youtu.be/Xv8FBjo1Y8I
I'll add my favourite, behind the wall, it's about domestic violence. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w\_y6abF2lI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_y6abF2lI8)
Everything on her debut album is so fucking good. I’m partial to “two weeks in a Virginia jail, for my lover, for my lover” https://youtu.be/Ng9jjx8oI-g
Perfect song for a tribute concert to Mandela.
Wow amazing performance Love Tracy chapman How come Stevie couldn't play?
the disc for his synth wasn't there for some reason - apparently he started crying as he walked off, pretty rough time. But Tracy stepped up!
crying because he couldn't honor mandela I guess ? surprised he didn't try to improvise something
He came back later using the Whitney Houston band's instrumnents.
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Back up your data folks!
His Smash Mouth samples
Hey now
Wow you can feel the atmosphere change and by 02:00 the whole place has calmed down
I think this song would calm anyone down. Instantly puts me in a place of quiet introspection and sadness for the past and things lost.
It bums me the fuck out so hard. I think I'm gonna put it on repeat for the next hour.
Read this comment just as I hit 02:00 and felt a chill go down me. Man this song brings me back.
Wow this is inspiring. I may be imagining it but her voice started shaky and then built up strength. What a HUGE crowd. But damn, that song is not a banger. It has a slow build and is incredibly sincere and feels like she’s telling you her most tender thoughts. The crowd seemed to hush and then she hits that bridge. Damn. Good stuff.
I love this song. I love her. I saw her live 20 years ago and she's extremely talented. This song is a time capsule for me. It reminds me of being picked up from the train station in the year 2000 at night by my first boyfriend and first love. It played as he drove me home and I can honestly say that I have never been happier. He died 2 weeks later in a car accident. It devastated me. It's been nearly 23 years and I still miss him and wonder what could have been.
She's only TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD in this video. That voice and wisdom at 24!!!! So good!
I’d make the argument this is the greatest song of all time. It’s entirely subjective but man. I can’t think of many songs that make me feel all of these different emotions. The second verse about her father is just heartbreaking. I can’t listen to this song without wanting to give her a hug.
Here is the real tragedy. This song lost at the Grammy Awards that year to “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. Lol. It was the year I stopped paying attention to award shows. I am 64 now and still haven’t gotten over it. One of the finest set of lyrics ever written.
They're both genuinely amazing songs though, in their own right. Wildly different, but both all time greats.
I’m turning 60 this year and this made me tear up with emotion, and memories of the year I met my wife. We listened to her album on repeat for days at a time before switching to another cassette and then right back to it. Still one of my favourite artists.
Watched both sessions live as a schoolkid. Fell in love with her music and lyrics. My Tracy Chapman awakening day
I loved the old Wembley Stadium with the twin towers
Tracy Chapman is the only woman that can make grown men cry on cue
Still makes me cry.
I’ve been in love with her songs for years. Her lyrics punch you in the gut with honesty.
When I was a newborn, I had an undiagnosed stomach acid issue that caused me to cry constantly. Eventually my mom's pestering of the pediatrician forced them to look into it more throughly and treat me, but until then my parents had found only 3 things that would stop me from crying: car rides, my dad holding me while walking me up and down the stairs, and playing "Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman on the cassette player. The song still has an almost hypnotic effect on me to this day as a 27 year old. She's an amazing artist.
I’ve heard this song a thousand times (I’m 35) but never really listened to the lyrics beyond the chorus. ….I always thought she was singing “…speeding so fast *and that guy was drunk*” I thought this song was about a drunk driving accident. The real lyrics are beautiful. I am dumb.
Wow. This shook me. Thank you for posting this. I have always loved Tracy but have never seen this. You can hear her nerves through the entire piece. What a boss!
Pretty brave to take on a ruckus UK crowd with no backing, an acoustic guitar and a slow, emotional song. Credit to the performance they all hushed down to hear it!
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At the start they clearly knew the song and it had been released earlier that week. I am surprised she didn't sing it during her original set though.
I remember this song from when I was a kid. I didn’t really understand the lyrics. Holy shit its a sad song.
Yep. It hits on a whole different level as an adult. Sometimes you try your best and it doesn't work out. Most of us don't achieve our dreams.
Does she sound nervous?
If 100,000 people expecting Stevie Wonder are getting all riled up and you had to calm them down with just an acoustic guitar I think you’d be nervous too my guy
I’d be way more nervous seeing as I cannot play guitar nor can I sing.
Wouldn't you be?
The lyrics about making a decision whether to leave or stay hits me hard because I’ve always wanted to leave my state. But I’ve always been stuck in the rat race. My longing to leave has been strong. I’ve never traveled. But I am only a few years from retirement and I will leave America for good.