A year and a half after Luke Combs dropped his hit cover of Tracy Chapman‘s “Fast Car,” the country star revealed he made a lyrical mistake.
At the Concert for Carolina on Oct. 26 — the Hurricane Helene benefit that also had Billy Strings and Eric Church on the bill — Combs revealed he had a chat with Chapman regarding his cover of her song. He told the crowd that Chapman gently pointed out that a line in his version (“Still gotta make a decision/Leave tonight, or live and die this way”) was wrong — the correct lyrics are “We gotta make a decision.”
“That was the first time I knew that I recorded the song incorrectly,” he said. “‘Cause I remember when she said it, I wanted to crawl in a hole. And luckily, she was awesome about it, and I think about it every single time that I sing the song, and I will think about it every single time I sing this song for the rest of my whole life.”
He then repeated the wrong lyrics to the audience. “Not the words, not the words,” he said. “I just made that up in my head. So tonight, I will probably sing ‘We gotta make a decision,’ because Tracy Chapman told me to, and damn it, I’m gonna do it.”
Combs released his cover of “Fast Car” in March 2023, which peaked at Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100 and resulted in Chapman’s 1988 version returning to the charts after 35 years. Its explosive success made Chapman the first-ever Black woman to have the sole songwriting credit on a Number One country hit and the first Black songwriter to win the Song of the Year at the CMA Awards.
When the 2024 Grammys rolled around, Combs was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance. At the ceremony in February, Chapman came out for a surprise duet with Combs, arguably the highlight of the evening.
“When it comes to the performance, it’s still hard to process how amazing it really was to be up there on that stage,” Combs later reflected. “No doubt a defining moment of my career,” he added. “Tracy, I want to send my sincerest thanks to you for allowing me to be a part of your moment …I hope you felt how much you mean to the world that night. We were all in awe of you up there, and I was just the guy lucky enough to have the best seat in the house.”