Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car is, in my option, a shining achievement in 20th Century American songwriting. There are few songs out there that provide such a subtle, complex, and emotionally poignant view of a particular kind of gendered and classed subject position in the contemporary US.
The turning of this narrative upon the “fast car,” arguably one of America’s most symbolically charged cultural artifacts, recursively constructs a fundamental tension. That is, the tension between the often comforting idealism, intoxicating excitement, and pleasurable materialism of a distinctly American ideology (embodied in the ownership of a fast car), and the grim realization that this ideological promise land is scantly accessible for some – a product of the circumstances of our surroundings and the social roles we occupy as gendered, classed, and raced actors. All of this is accomplished with simple and clear lyrical choices, digestible by the masses – the hallmark of good folk music.
Couple the lyrical brilliance of fast car with one of most melodic guitar riffs ever crafted (widely referred to now as the “Tracey Chapman Riff”), and there is little surprise that this song charted in the top 10 in the US and Europe, won a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and was nominated for Album and Song of the year.