Understanding Fast Car

You've got a fast car.

What is there to say about Tracy Chapman's devastatingly beautiful debut single? It's a powerful story told with incredible finesse and craft, supported by music that stays out of her way while also building the world of her story. It was a near-instant classic on release, and has remained relevant and beloved for decades since. Let's talk about it.

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[tone]

Some additional thoughts/corrections:

1) Technically, the bass isn't exactly doubling the low guitar line. In the guitar, she plays the A below the rest of the notes, whereas the bass plays a (relatively) high A instead. I don't view that distinction as particularly significant in this context, the more important point is they both maintain the same register for the F#-E-D walk in order to keep that smooth slide downward, but still, technically a difference between the two.

2) For those of you familiar with my chord loop model, it's also worth noting that the A chord is the destination in a cascade loop. This further strengthens it, helping it maintain its status as the perceived root despite being somewhat metrically buried.

3) One thing I wish I'd found space for in this script is the subtle slide between the second and third chord in the loop. It's not super obvious, but since the top line is all on the B string, moving all the way from E to A means gliding up 5 frets at once, and doing that without lifting her fingers gives the arrival on that A a dramatic tinge. It's hard to isolate (Melodyne wound up putting it on the middle-voice A for some reason, you can hear it in that example) and it doesn't super stand out, but if you listen for it, it's definitely there. I don't know how impactful it actually is, but I've been trying in recent analyses to think more about the physicality of the guitar, because it affects so many performance choices, (hence the discussion of the capo) and this is a good example. She could have got the same notes by moving up the the E string, but she wouldn't have got the same sound.

4) I said the same pattern starts every verse, but that's not _quite_ true: In the later verses, she occasionally adds some brief As to the low calls, but I don't think it really affects the implied energy level. They feel relatively transient to my ear, especially compared to the prominent role of the high E, so it didn't seem worth mentioning. The structure feels basically the same, even if the details are slightly different.

5) You could probably just analyze the chords in the final bar of the chorus as IV-V setting up a resolution to I, which then gets interrupted by the return of the main riff, but given that, across this entire song, every time we hear E, it's followed by D, I think by this point that sort of functional-harmony approach has lost most of its predictive or analytical power. Viewing it as a hollowed-out subsection of the primary loop makes more sense to me, although again, both analyses can be true simultaneously.

6) While I've seen many claims that Chapman is the first Black women to be sole writer on a #1 Billboard country single, I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly the set of charts that applies to. Combs' single was #1 on the Country Airplay charts, which technically only date back to 2012, but prior to that, the Hot Country chart has been airplay-only since 1990 and Billboard considers that a part of the Airplay chart's history, so probably at least that far. There are other Billboard Country charts dating back to 1949, but it's not entirely clear to me whether any Black women were sole writers on any #1 singles on those prior to the airplay-only switch in 1990. Probably not, for a lot of reasons, but nothing I've read is conclusive on that point. Even if it's just since 1990, though, that's still over 30 years, which seems damning enough.

[kbrad]

I find this song to be one of the saddest and devastating songs of all time. The hopefulness and optimism of escaping a hard situation, only to find herself trapped in the same situation. I can't listen to it without crying, and cried during most of your video.

[Merennulli]

Her vocal performance I think is what really "sells" the emotion of the song to my ear. Listening to some of the covers of it, without her voice, it just sounds...empty. There's a brokenness in her voice that is very human, and it conveys a very palpable emotion to it. The structure certainly takes you on that journey and shapes the context, but it's not enough on its own. Almost like a "fast car" with the engine removed and put on a slot track for an amusement park ride.

[noracola]

I used to think of this song as purely a tragedy but after some life experience I began to see the act of presenting the partner with an ultimatum as a move in possibly a positive direction - thus the hopefulness of the ending. We don't know what will happen but now something will. The cycle is broken.

[RubyRoks]

This might be the first 12tone video i've cried to. Fast Car is a song i can deeply relate to and soundtracked one of the darkest parts of my life so far. No amount of pausing to collect myself got my through the lyrical analysis section.

[bmac]

There's something so captivating about this song, there's so much soul to it and it speaks to so many people who have been there, hoping for improvement in their life only to get brought back down, struggling to truly live for yourself, wanting to get away from it all, or even moving from one set of shackles to another.

I cant help but feel a slight irony to this being the song that made Chapman famous though lol

[my-spinning-wheel]

Even though it isn't a style I love or a message that directly speaks to my experiences, I have very little hesitation in saying that "Fast Car" may be the greatest song I have ever heard. I can't imagine anyone from any walk of life not loving this song and feeling something when they listen to it. I can remember driving in my car and hearing it on the radio and just crying. There are many songs that mean more to me, that hit harder, and that speak more to my experience, but there is nothing out there like "Fast Car".

[noahandrulis]

I think something important to recognize about Fast Car is that the guitar part is simple to play. I say this not to imply that it’s a bad guitar part or to say Chapman is a bad guitarist or songwriter, but to reinforce 12Tone’s comments about the orchestration of Fast Car. If she wanted too, Chapman could probably make the guitar lines far fancier, but that would take away from the focus on her voice the simpler guitar part produces, and make it all the less poignant. It’s a simple guitar line, so the lyrics can be given the full attention they deserve both by the singer and the audience.

[boomerdell]

I remember when this song was released. I was 21 and still quite naive, still living in a safe bubble, yet this song went deep into my heart and never left. Her vocal delivery just hit me. Beautiful, understatedly powerful, vulnerable, strong…so many things.
I saw her perform in concert soon after. Elevated her even higher in my eyes.
Thank you so much, Cory, for this video. Especially your commentary at the end about the Luke Combs cover (which, I must confess, up until you informed me, I did not know about). So important.🙏🏽

[RobertStoll]

Fast car is comfort food for me. There's so much complexity built into softly stated but common mechanics, that speak almost louder than the lyrics itself.

[JPBrooksLive]

This and "Cats in the Cradle" absolutely kill me nowadays. The story of a son never being able to spend time with his dad, both in youth and adulthood is heartbreaking and all to true for myself and too many others.

[MikiaStorm]

For myself the song is the Tragedy of Hope. Hope is an abstract thing that gives us something that can be, but without action it is as dust in the winds of time. More times than not our hopes are crushed, either by someone else or even more often by our own action or inaction. For myself the song is saying you can't rely on the driver of the Fast Car, sometimes you have to take the wheel yourself to get where you want to be.

[chloemchll]

Third reading of her changing from “we” to “you” in the final verse:

The “you” is actually the singer singing to herself. She is saying she has to make the choice to either move forward again, knowing it could fail just like it already has, or resign herself to always being stuck where she is as if it was always her destiny, whether with a parent or a partner, to support someone else at her expense.

[rmdodsonbills]

I've been working in homeless services for the past decade and this song hits me a lot differently now than it did when I was an optimistic 20-year-old, about to go to advanced training with the US Army. Just thinking about the chorus gets me all choked up these days. I mean *all* choked up. And a lot of that is because I now know more about pain, loss, and a slowly breaking heart, with just a hint of hope hiding in there. I don't hear any optimism in there.

Nice use of the Fractured Fairy Tales fairy at the beginning of the lyrics analysis about how she tells the story. Perfect. And also, pretty good for a whippersnapper :)

[Hey-Its-Dingo]

When you started describing how the progression seems to be in the key of C, but falls apart if you continue that line of thinking because it's actually in the key of A, I had an epiphany: The progression is intentionally set up to give the illusion of stability.

[nacoran]

Great analysis. I'm glad you got into lyrical analysis on this one; it deserves it. I remember giving the album a lot of listens back in the day. The quality of the songs varied a bit, but there were several standouts- Fast Car, Give Me One Reason, For My Lover... there is a whole 'Show don't tell' thing that I've had in my head about her album for years... her best songs she doesn't tell you what to think. I don't mean that in a 'stay in your lane' sense, just in a story telling sense. She's very political (and from what I've seen, I mostly share her politics) but she is better at persuading people when she does it by making you empathize rather than telling you specifically what the problem is... show the devastating effects of poverty rather than tell people poverty is bad. When I write songs I struggle with that problem whenever I want to take on deep issues... I can let the story narrative take the listener along when it's 'just a story' but whenever I try to write something 'important' I struggle. It's so easy to cross that line between creating empathy, which in turn moves people towards your cause, and telling people what to think, which tends to move them away. She didn't get the balance just right on every song on the album, but when she did... wow.

[michaelkonomos]

Thank you SO much for bringing up the important issues here. The original is perfection.

[osmium]

I just wanna say how much I love all the little doodles and pop culture references you make on the page. I love when you get to the bottom and look back at all the points you've made so far, each drawing encapsulating it's own little moment of emotion. I very nearly cried to this video, and I hope everyone watching realizes these videos aren't just analysis but works of art in their own right.

[easy-to-read-name]

I don't remember a theoretical analysis of a song contributing so much to grasping its emotional content. Thank you.

[Yesnomu]

Fantastic analysis! I really appreciate the sensitivity you show to the context of the cover.