February 5, 2024

JOHN NOLTE: Tracy Chapman’s Grammy Moment of Pure Americanism.

Using only her art, the legendary Tracy Chapman took to the Grammy stage Sunday night and made the most American of statements.

The story behind Chapman’s iconic, Grammy-winning hit “Fast Car” dates back 36 years to 1988, when it was first released. She was only 23 then, but in the synthesized-saxophoned eighties, “Fast Car” was something all its own.

The Clevelend-born Chapman was lucky. America was still a young country then, a country eager to embrace The New, an anxious culture always glancing over the shoulder of the latest superstar, eager for whatever was next.

The stagnant America we live in today, a culture crippled by nostalgia that still watches Law & Order, anticipates the next Star Wars movie, attends Rolling Stones concerts, and pays to see an 80-year-old play Indiana Jones was inconceivable then. And so, during a year that gave us “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Milli Vanilli, and Tiffany, seemingly from nowhere came this beautiful, moving, and vivid folk-rock song, a young woman’s desperate lament to escape the quicksand of poverty and “be someone, be someone.”

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Superstardom and awards followed, as did another big hit in 1997 with “Give Me One Reason.” Through it all, Chapman never lost her poise. On top of her physical beauty, Chapman’s charisma is primarily a product of how we are drawn to her remove. We know she’ll always give us our money’s worth. We also know she’ll never tell us her secrets. She doesn’t need us. She knows who she is. And who she is is none of our business.

Throughout her life, Chapman was having none of it when it came to fame. She kept her personal life personal, quietly supported her causes, and turned down untold riches from rap artists who sought to sample her music — and when Nikki Minaj did so without permission, Chapman sued and won $450,000.

But in the realm of “having none of it,” nothing will ever top the moment when Tracy Chapman’s humanity met America’s modern-day culture — this obscene, cancerous, ignorant, smug, divisive, oversharing, narcissistic, mean-spirited glob of hate and stupidity.

Speaking of which:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll