Posted on 07/30/2023 8:38:58 AM PDT by Drew68
The year 1988 feels like a very long time ago to anyone who remembers it, and ancient history to anyone who doesn’t. I turned 20 halfway through it. So I’m afraid whatever travails and traumas I was undergoing have now been blotted out by the middle-aged person’s rose-tinted remembrance of being young. The grass was greener then, my memory tells me, unreliably.
One recollection that I can confirm with the aid of historical evidence is that ‘Fast Car’ by Tracy Chapman was everywhere. I heard it in seedy gay bars, at civil-service leaving dos, at family barbecues. It is one of those songs that announces itself instantly as a classic for the ages. But unlike most songs in that category, it is beguiling in a subtle way. The acoustic guitar riff is simplicity itself, with just a few repeated, easily imitated notes.
And there is so much going on under the bonnet. The vocal is unshowy, almost hesitant. It holds back for most of the duration, so the thrill when it soars, just a bit, is a punch to the gut (the good kind). The lyrics are heartbreaking. They recall a thwarted attempt to make something out of a messy family life and a failed relationship. It ends with the realisation that things are just going to go on as they are until death. Yes, there is – maybe – a route out to something better, but Chapman probably isn’t going to take it.
It was a multi-platinum international mega-smash hit. Most of those – ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Rolling in the Deep’, etc – become so ubiquitous that you forget how much you once loved them. They lose their lustre by repetition and become rather irritating. Something that used to be beautiful picks up naff connotations, becomes a mere jingle, an ‘Autoglass Repair, Autoglass Replace’. But ‘Fast Car’ has always kept its fascination and its dignity, no matter how many times it’s been played.
A recent cover of the song by country singer Luke Combs has returned ‘Fast Car’ to public attention. It has spent the past three weeks at the top of the Billboard Country Airplay Chart in the US, and has reached No2 in the Billboard Hot 100. The new version adds some distinctive and haunting country twangs. Charmingly, it doesn’t change the female sex of the lyrics (so Combs is still working ‘in the market as a checkout girl’).
Sadly, in the Great Age of Stupid that we live in, somebody had to say something daft about the cover, to make it all about race and sexuality. Step forward Emily Yahr of the Washington Post. In a tweet announcing her article, she wrote: ‘As Luke Combs’s hit cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” dominates the country charts, it’s bringing up some complicated emotions in fans and singers who know that Chapman, as a queer black woman, would have an almost zero chance at that achievement herself.’
There is so much wrong in this tweet. For one thing, the fact that the original version is very clearly not a country song, and that Chapman is not a country artist, seems to have passed Yahr by entirely.
The article itself is even worse. Yahr tries – hard – to equate Luke Combs’s cover, which Chapman has wholeheartedly endorsed, with the genuine grievances of those black rock’n’roll artists in the 1950s who never achieved the same recognition as the white singers who covered or ripped off their songs.
The article is on an even stickier wicket when it comes to Chapman’s sexuality. It tells us that Chapman ‘does not discuss her personal life’. Nevertheless, Yahr feels perfectly entitled to do so based on hearsay. She is also blasé about pigeonholing Chapman with the ridiculous word ‘queer’.
Worse still, the thrust of the Washington Post article more or less erases Chapman’s huge success in the 1980s, implying that being a black lesbian thwarted her ambitions. Back in the real world, Chapman was nominated for several Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for ‘Fast Car’ (Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ beat her to those, somewhat incredibly). She won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.
Yahr’s article speaks to a broader phenomenon. It is yet another example of how fairly recent lesbian and gay history is being rewritten. Everything is being remoulded to fit the ‘LGBT+’ movement’s Year Zero worldview.
Singer Sam Smith has made similarly ridiculous claims about being a pioneering gay voice in pop music, seemingly unaware of the careers of those little-known, shunned artists Elton John, Freddie Mercury and George Michael.
Outside the sphere of pop music, trans activists are now being given the credit for leading the gay-rights movement. Think of the oft-repeated claim that ‘a black trans woman threw the first brick at the Stonewall riot’ in New York in 1969. In truth, the drag artist in question, by his own account, didn’t actually arrive at the Stonewall Inn until several hours later. Similarly, Dublin Pride recently photoshopped the slogan ‘trans rights are human rights’ on to a placard in a photograph of a gay-rights protest in 1983 – a feat worthy of Stalin.
It is profoundly weird that people who claim to be standing up for gays and lesbians are actually the ones erasing the history and achievements of homosexual people.
But then again, memory is unreliable. Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe the Before Times, pre-the Great Awokening, didn’t actually happen. Did we dream them? Am I misremembering? Or was there a time when people weren’t such colossal ideological idiots?
Gareth Roberts is a screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work on Doctor Who.
Links at the source.
And congrats to Chapman, who thanks to Combs' cover, became the first black female sole songwriter with a #1 hit on the country charts.
What’s this writer doing in seedy gay bars?
trans activists are now being given the credit for leading the gay-rights movement.
Right on.
It is profoundly weird that people who claim to be standing up for gays and lesbians are actually the ones erasing the history and achievements of homosexual people.
I thought the so g sucked then and it still sucks today.
Well I turned 18 the year it came out. I don't know what sort of barbeques the author went to, but this depressing slow-paced song would suck the joy out of any such event. And, no, it was not a "classic for the ages". It was a one-hit wonder that everyone had forgotten about until now.
What’s this writer doing in seedy gay bars?
++++++++++++++
A Packer from way backer, sounds like.
Thanks for sharing.
Couldn’t stand the song then and still hate it today.
“The times, they are a changing.”
When Trump took office, regular Gays had achieved acceptance. In some cities, like Miami and Seattle, they were almost dominant. The Left had nothing more to gain from pushing Gay rights. They need something to expand their power, beyond Gays and Blacks. They would be able to push pedophilia as “trans rights”.
Seattle only had a 7.5% Black population in the census before the Summer of Love. The area that they took over was never Black. It was a Gay area and had been for decades. When the city of Seattle offered new subsidized housing to Gays only, it didn’t go over very well because Gays were as economically stable as any other demographic. There weren’t that many Black people. They had to import them for their Summer of Love.
They were in the market for a new demographic that they could use to continue their attack on Western civil society.
I'm not Sherlock Holmes but I'd wager he was being gay.
It did and still does.
“Fast Car’ by Tracy Chapman was everywhere. I heard it in seedy gay bars..“
TMI
Anyone who things Chapman is upset that her song just went platinum again does not understand how songwriting royalties work.
Well, years ago, nobody said “LGBT” or “LGBTQ” the way they do now. Years ago, people said “gays and lesbians” in references to homosexuals. Somewhere along the way, transgenders were added to the mix. I don’t remember when that happened, but now, nobody in the media ever says just “gays and lesbians” anymore. They always say “LGBT” or “LGBTQ” or even “LGBTQ+”.
For whatever reason, transsexuals were grafted onto the whole “gay” rights movement.
Don't understand how it ever became popular. Somebody must have liked it.
It was an annoying tune. You play this and sinead’s songs at a party and people would leave depressed.
Chapman not only authorized the cover but is happy with it, and certainly is enjoying the royalties.
And that's what really pisses off the wokesters. The Washington Post article linked at the source is particularly repulsive.
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