By: Kiki Arochas, Staff Writer
Since April 6, 1988, Tracy Chapman’s signature “Fast Car,” has meant many different things to many different people. For some, it’s about the struggle out of poverty in the face of overbearing circumstances. For others, it’s a song about hope, about finding a way out from those holding you down. But for me, I’d always viewed it as a struggle against inevitability. The tragedy of circumstance, of forces outside of our control dictating our futures, and our attempts to change course, yet ultimately ending in the same result. In a word; fate. With this, I hope to shed some light on the beauty of Tracy Chapman’s storytelling.
You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere. Maybe we make a deal,
Maybe together we can get somewhere.
Any place is better, Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove
Immediately we get a glimpse of the narrator’s headspace. Defeated by life and circumstance, she has the fateful meeting with the character with the ‘fast car.’ Together, she hopes, they can make something out of the nothing she has.
You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won’t have to drive too far
Just ‘cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living
The narrator elaborates on her plan for a better life, with a reveal about the boyfriend: he is unemployed. It seems the only thing he has to offer her plan is his fast car—literally and figuratively— a means by which to escape her current life.
You see my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
I say his body’s too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did
Now, her backstory is revealed–what led to her precarious circumstances. Without an education or a mother, she is stuck taking care of a deadbeat father. She is trapped, and desperate for an escape.
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
She gives the boy the first ultimatum: we have to escape this together, or nothing is ever going to change. You with your car and me with my plan– together, we will try to make something. The chorus next describes what brought her to have something to believe in:
I remember we were driving, driving in your car
speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
With him, the narrator finally feels like a person, like someone who can, in spite of her plight, rise above it and become someone. With this newfound belief, she embarks on her new life.
You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain’t got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You’ll find work and I’ll get promoted
We’ll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs
Now we get the first indication that things aren’t going to plan, in spite of her optimism: you still aint got a job. Despite this, she remains optimistic, enjoying the time with him and his fast car. She again reminisces about what brought them together:
I remember we were driving, driving in your car
speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
Time passes, and the narrator has had quite the change of heart.
You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I’d always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving
The fast car, once the symbol of hope for escaping to a better tomorrow, is now a point of derision: you’ve got a fast car, and I actually have a job. Take your fast car—keep living in a fantasy—and go. This moment was foreshadowed when we learned the narrator’s backstory. Her mother left her father because he wouldn’t support them, and now, with kids in tow, she finds herself in the same situation.
I remember we were driving, driving in your car
speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
Now the memories of the ride turn from beautiful to pitiful. Rather than nostalgia of a time that led to better things, it is now a memory of regret. She had been fooled into thinking that things would change, that she could escape with him.
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
This new ultimatum calls back to the original, with a twist: you must change or leave. There is no more ‘we.’ The cycle is complete. Her circumstances of the deadbeat father and the leaving mother have repeated themselves. She is back where she started, exactly where her own mother was.
Leave tonight or live and die this way.