In a different voice

On "Fast Car" and cultural appropriation.

Dear friends,

If you grew up in the 1980s, like me, you can probably recognize Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” from the first few notes: da-da-da-DAH, up and down and up again. When Chapman’s contralto comes in, it’s so rich and deep that the first time I heard it, I couldn’t tell if the singer was a man or a woman. But even before the line about working as a checkout girl, as the song progresses it becomes clear that the story it tells is a woman’s story.

Or did it just sound that way to me? As a teenager, I would have loved to find someone with a fast car whose arm would feel nice wrapped ’round my shoulder, someone who would zoom me out of my childhood and on to an independent life. Anyplace is better. If you start from zero you’ve got nothing to lose.

The cover of Tracy Chapman’s eponymous first album (1988).

I knew I should be happy for Chapman when the song resurfaced this summer in a cover by Luke Combs, a country-music star I hadn’t heard of before. His version is glitzier than hers, more heavily produced, a little faster, but it’s a faithful cover. His fans are loving it—in a video of him performing it live, you can hear them going crazy. When his version got to number one on the Country Airplay chart, Chapman became the first Black woman songwriter ever to reach that spot with a solo composition. Though he apparently didn’t ask her for permission before covering it, she graciously acknowledged his success. “I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there,” she told Billboard magazine. “I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’” (Combs has been paying Chapman royalties.)

The spectacle of a white man making money off a Black woman’s song (to put it bluntly) made me uncomfortable. Yes, I know musicians borrow from each other all the time; anyone can cover anyone else’s song, regardless of gender or racial lines. Some of my favorite songs are covers: Cat Power’s “Sea of Love,” originally by Phil Phillips, a Black man; the Cowboy Junkies’ “Sweet Jane,” by the Velvet Underground. (Incidentally, these are covers that transform the original; I’m not sure what Luke Combs’s version adds to “Fast Car.”) The story of “Fast Car”—childhood abuse, escape with a new love, then disillusionment as the cycle of addiction and abuse repeats—isn’t uniquely Black or female.

But there’s something about the way Chapman sings it that sounds so personal. Even if the song isn’t her story, it feels wrong to hear it in another voice.

Add to that the long history of white musicians and producers profiting off the genius of Black musicians: Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog”), Led Zeppelin (“Whole Lotta Love,” “When the Levee Breaks”), even the British New Wave band Soft Cell (“Tainted Love”). “When you put a White face on Black art, it seems to be consumed a lot easier,” Tanner Davenport, co-director of an organization for Black country music singers and fans, told The Washington Post.

Still, as a white teenager, I identified with Chapman. Why shouldn’t Luke Combs do the same? Shouldn’t the greatest art transcend racial and cultural boundaries?

These issues are on my mind more than usual because I’ve been getting ready to teach a new course this fall that looks at a selection of novels—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to American Dirt—from a political perspective. How exactly are we, as contemporary readers, supposed to understand the way Mark Twain handles the character of Jim, the escaped slave who runs away with Huck—not to mention the novel’s repeated use of the N-word? Is it possible to appreciate To Kill a Mockingbird despite Atticus Finch’s white savior complex? Does American Dirt present the reality for migrants fleeing danger in Central America, or is it the work of a white woman appropriating their narratives?

American culture has no shortage of white people telling the stories of Black people. Is there a way for Luke Combs to sing Tracy Chapman’s song without drowning out her voice? I’d love to know what you think in the comments.

What I’m reading

Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” is always on my mind this time of year. It’s one of those stories that starts off looking like nothing unusual is going on and slowly, almost imperceptibly, takes a turn into the sinister. A couple have been vacationing peacefully for years at their small-town summer home. But when they decide one year to stay past Labor Day, things start going wrong. The grocer declines to deliver their food; the kerosene man says he doesn’t have enough to replenish their supply; their car is tampered with and their telephone lines are cut. The message is clear: strangers will be tolerated only as long as they respect their boundaries. For more, check out this post on tor.com.

Where I’ll be

Speaking of Shirley Jackson, I’m leading a virtual reading group with A Public Space on The Haunting of Hill House, my favorite Jackson novel. It will be—naturally—in October. Details in next month’s newsletter or on the APS Together Substack.

As ever,

Ruth

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are considered, by some, to dream.”—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House