Who Asked For A “Fast Car” Cover?
The pain we go through whenever this cover of Tracy Chapman’s classic comes up (and it comes up a lot.)
If you happen to be subject to a modern phenomenon called “permanent music” in your work environment, you might have already realized that there’s a very familiar song that has dominated the airplay. It’s a cover of Tracy Chapman’s timeless classic, “Fast Car,” except this specific fast car has come to erase all the remnants of a beautiful halcyon day memory of an authentic pop hit.
The last thing this calamity-ridden world needed was a butchering of the dream of a black singer-songwriter girl whose laidback vocals, lyrical honesty, and humble storytelling catapulted her to the top of the charts for all the right reasons. To add insult to injury, this murder could not come from a place more far-fetched than a young white country dude.
Pop music, from various aspects, is under attack. What you hear on your Spotify top lists are no longer hits but near-AI diarrhea syrups with a touch of mint, written to be overplayed and simultaneously forgotten.
The lyrics are no longer sermons for total eclipses of hearts, longings to be someone’s sledgehammer, or even getting jiggy with things. The artists are no longer suffering. They are, instead, gifted…
