Tracy Chapman’s Hit single “Fast Car” has lived many lives. There was the success of its initial release in 1988 and then its tropical house revival at the hands of Jonas Blue and Dakota in 2015, years before its unexpected pandemic surge in 2020. Now it has reached historic heights thanks to an über-hit Luke Combs cover that recently topped Billboard‘s Country Airplay Chart, making Chapman the first-ever black woman to have sole writing credit on a number-one country hit.
“I didn’t expect to end up on the country charts, but I’m honored to be here,” Chapman said. Billboard, speaking for the first time about the country boost the song has received since Combs officially released its cover in March. “I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car’.”
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In 2020, Combs shared an acoustic “Fast Car” cover that captured his bare essence without any added EDM or pop production changes. “The guitar part of this song is super iconic, and everyone knows the song as soon as you start playing it,” Combs said. rolling stone at the time. “They know it and they sing with them. It’s like “Free Bird” or “Jolene”.
There’s something universal about the lyrics Chapman wrote on “Fast Car” that found it nearly impossible to play the “wrong” way. “Any song that sounds good on guitar can most likely be a country song,” singer and songwriter Tayla Parx recently said. rolling stone. “With a good song, you can take it and make it sound like seven different genres, so that says a lot about the type of ‘Fast Car’ song: it can be a pop song, it can be a country song, it can be n’ whatever, because it’s just a great song.
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