The songwriter made history last week as the first-ever Black woman to have the sole songwriting credit on a Number One country hit
Tracy Chapman’s hit single “Fast Car” has lived many lives. There was the success of its initial release in 1988, 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’s reached history-making heights thanks to an über-successful cover from Luke Combs that recently topped Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart, making Chapman the first-ever Black woman to have the sole songwriting credit on a Number One country hit.
“I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there,” Chapman told Billboard, speaking for the first time on the country boost the song has received since Combs officially released his cover in March. “I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’”
In 2020, Combs shared an acoustic “Fast Car” cover that captured its bare essence without any added EDM or pop production switch-ups. “The guitar part on that song is super iconic, and everyone knows the song as soon as you start playing it,” Combs told Rolling Stone at the time. “They know it, and they sing along. It’s like ‘Free Bird’ or ‘Jolene.’”
There’s something universal about the lyrics Chapman wrote on “Fast Car” that has deemed it nearly impossible to perform in the “wrong” way. “Any song that sounds good on guitar, it can more than likely be a country song,” the singer and songwriter Tayla Parx recently told Rolling Stone. “With a great song, you can take it and make it sound like seven different genres, so that says a lot about what type of song ‘Fast Car’ is: it can be a pop song, a country song, it can be whatever, because it’s just a great song.”