Tracy Chapman talked about Fast Car on the BBC radio in 2010: “In United States, “Fast Car” was the song that was played on the radio, more than “Talkin’Bout A Revolution” so it was something that turned out to take a significant role in shaping my first record and probably the public perception of me as a singer songwriter who is writing about stories, songs which tells stories about people lives and very generally represents the world that I saw it when I was growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, coming from a working class background. I’ve raised by single mom, I was just watching people, being in a community of people who were struggling. So everyone was really just 1. Working hard 2. hoping that things would get better.

In part everything that a person writes is autobiographical but the songs are directly so and most of them were not and Fast Car wasn’t one that was directly autobiographical. I never had a Fast Car, it’s just a story about a couple, how they are trying to make a life together and they face challenges.

I definitely felt the emotionality of the song that there were something… You never know how other people are going to respond to it and this is not that relevant but one thing I remember about writing the song that it was late in the evening and at the time I had a small dog, a Miniature Dachshund, and the dog was staying up with me. She didn’t always stay up if I stayed up late, I think she was sitting on the couch right next to me, when I first started writing the music and the first few lyrics, I think the first part of the song that came to me was the first line “You’ve got a fast car…” I just feel that I remember in a way that she seemed to be more procked up than usual. So I don’t know if she felt my energy or if she was just not as tired as she normally was but it was kind of funny to have her there for the process of the beginning of writing that song

 

 

 

I had so many people come up to me and say that they felt it was their song and someone told me at one point that they thought I’ve been reading their mail, they were saying “You seem to know my story” and people would come up and tell me about a car relationship and some detail that they felt was in the song that represented something that happened in their lives.”