It’s not often we get songs like ‘Fast Car’ by Tracy Chapman. Despite its proven staying power, often covered by anyone with a guitar and a world too small to make their dreams come true, “Fast Car” feels fragile every time you hear it, a work so full of longing for something that the speaker trembles to articulate, otherwise it disappears forever. Thirty-six years after the 1988 song made Chapman famous (following an impromptu performance at Wembley Stadium for a concert celebrating Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday), the legendary singer-songwriter made a surprise appearance and a rare public appearance at the Grammys for one of the best moments of the awards ceremony in recent memory.
“Fast Car” has been on a strange journey over the past year, becoming another megahit after country singer Luke Combs’ cover exploded in popularity over the summer. Combs’ success with Chapman’s 1988 classic became a cultural flashpoint, which resurfaces discussions about white appropriation of black art in general, and more specifically the lack of support black and queer artists have in the country music industry. (It’s worth noting that Chapman owns the publishing rights to her music and therefore cuts back on cover recordings like Combs’s.)
At Sunday’s Grammy Awards, Combs paid tribute to Chapman in a recorded segment about the remarkable success of his cover, and what “Fast Car” (for which Chapman won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 1989 Grammys) means to him. To the audience’s surprise and delight, Chapman then joined Combs on stage to perform the song – one of the few public appearances the reclusive and famously private artist has made since the release of her last album, 2008’s Our bright future.
Awards ceremonies are strange affairs, often ostentatious celebrations of commerce over art, cheerful and self-indulgent in ways that can be a far cry from the reasons people love art to begin with. But at their best, they are a stage like any other: a stage where the right person, with the right song, can enchant anyone: the celebrities in the audience or a weary commuter watching a clip on social media and remembering a dream that they needed to get away from it all and find a place where they belonged.