The meaning behind Fast Car

• Fast Car is a song written and performed by American folk rock singer Tracy Chapman in 1986.

• As quoted by Tracy Chapman in an interview in 1986 with Canadian radio station CIDR, “I think that it was a song about my parents…..a new life together and my mother was anxious to leave home. [They]tried to make a life for themselves and it was very difficult going….my mother didn’t have a high school diploma and my father was a few years older….hard for him to create the ideal life that he wanted…in a sense I think they came together thinking that they would have a better chance of making it”

• The song became popular around the 1980s after Tracy Chapman performed it at the 70th birthday Nelson Mandela tribute.

• The song is narrative, and tells the story from the point of view of a woman who wants to get out of her hometown to leave her problems behind, such as taking care of her alcoholic father, after her mother left the family. She finds the addressee, a lover with the titular fast car, and sees it as an opportunity to get out of her hometown at last and start life anew. However, the reality is far from that, as the song continues, and reveals how even after moving to the city, she is still working a dead-end job and living in a homeless shelter, while her lover is unemployed. It parallels her own parents’ relationship, as her lover becomes a father and an alcoholic, and their relationship grows rocky. Eventually she decides that she does not need him anymore, and tells him to either clean up his act or leave.

• Hope and resilience are major themes in this song, as the persona continues to persevere despite the many challenges that are thrown at her in life, from her upbringing to her newfound problems.However, she remains optimistic and presses on, and we find hope in how she eventually achieves independence and supposedly leaves her problems behind.

• One can interpret the title ‘Fast Car’ as a symbol of escapism. However, as the song goes on, it is revealed that getting out of a situation is far from easy and even if you start anew, there will always be problems and challenges in life to overcome. Additionally, sometimes, you will find that people who are close to you make irresponsible and selfish decisions which affect you .In order to carry on a meaningful and purposeful life, you may have to give up on them. To prevent this from happening, it is essential to become independent and not place all your faith in someone else, just as the persona has done in Fast Car.

Below is a photo of Tracy Chapman performing Fast Car at Wembley Stadium.