Track 16 - “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman (1988)

From the album Tracy Chapman

Music & lyrics by Tracy Chapman

Performed by:

Tracy Chapman – lead vocals, acoustic guitar

Larry Klein – bass  

Denny Fongheiser – drums, percussion   

US Billboard Hot 100 - #6; US Adult Contemporary - #7; US Mainstream Rock - #19; Year-End US Billboard - #76 (1988)

1989 Grammys – Nominated: Record of the Year, Song of the Year; Win: Best Female Pop Vocal, Best New Artist

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time - #71

You got a fast car

I got a job that pays all our bills

You stay out drinking late at the bar

See more of your friends than you do of your kids

I’d always hoped for better

Thought maybe together you and me would find it

I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere

So take your fast car and keep on driving

Before big box stores like Best Buy or Target, there were stereo stores. These were small to mid-sized neighborhood establishments, usually staffed by men in their early thirties to mid-fifties. They were passionate about sound; not necessarily music but sound itself. They could tell you about the subtle differences between the array of available brands, and they knew about equalizer ranges, and why an 8-inch subwoofer might work better than a 5-inch subwoofer in a room of a certain size. They knew about the weights of different turntable needles, and how often you might have to change that needle, depending on how often you played your records and what brand of turntable you owned. When CDs became popular, they could tell you about the lasers used in certain brands, and the rate of spin, and how that affects the way the music sounds. They could help you put together a complete system with separate components, because they knew how those components interacted with others, and what would sound best together. But maybe most critical was they knew about speakers; you could spend thousands on a receiver, amplifier, CD player or turntable, but if the speakers couldn’t keep up, or worse, overmatched those components, it would sound terrible and was just a big waste of your money. And if you wanted to upgrade your speakers, you had better know what kind of system you had at home so that one of these qualified gentlemen could point you in the right direction. It sounds complicated, doesn’t it? But back when your stereo was the centerpiece of your living space and it was a real investment, the complexity of it all didn’t matter. Most of us needed those stereo guys, in their slacks, short-sleeved button-down shirts, and striped ties to tell us what would sound best. They would spend hours with you, talking about what sounded best and let you listen to the various floor models before you made a purchase. They never rushed you into a sale, because if you brought home your purchases and the sound was awful, it was their fault. They loved sound. So, before Bluetooth and Spotify, there were stereo salesmen and there were neighborhood electronics stores. Could you go to Sears or JC Penney back in the day and buy an out-of-the-box stereo, plug it in and start listening to music? Yes, you could…but if you loved music, and cared about how it sounded, your local electronics store is where you went. Buying a stereo was also a rite of passage; your first stereo was usually a big deal, even if the system itself wasn’t much, and it was usually your parents who bought it for you, wrapped up underneath the Christmas tree or presented as a birthday gift. As you might expect, I begged for a real stereo at a very early age, and I eventually got that stereo, and several others as gifts, before I could afford my own. How could I not? My first experience with a stereo system in the 1970s were speakers that were taller than me, and buttons I didn’t understand, and were way off limits to my grade school hands. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve already mentioned the album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John, and how it changed my life and made me love music, but what about the stereo it was played on? For that, we’ll have to go to California and then halfway around the world to Southeast Asia.

When my father graduated high school in June of 1967, US troop levels in Vietnam had escalated to over 500,000. The conflict in Vietnam was showing no signs of slowing down, so rather than wait to be drafted by the Army, my father enlisted in the Air Force when he was 18 years old. He trained as a combat medic, and was assigned to Travis Air Force Base, in Vacaville, California. Vacaville sits about halfway in between San Francisco and Sacramento, with the base located at the edge of the Sacramento Valley. According to its website, the base handles more military personnel and cargo than any base in the United States and has participated in humanitarian aid operations on every continent. My father arrived there in late 1967 and would shuttle back and forth to New York when he was on leave to visit my mother; she would join him after they were married in September of 1969. In the interim, my father had befriended a pilot and his wife who lived on the base, a couple I would come to know through my parents’ stories as Colonel and Mrs. Jackson. The Colonel was a career military man, quiet and friendly, someone steady the younger enlistees could look up to. His wife was the more social of the two, known on the base for her home cooking and big personality. They often hosted large holiday dinners and get-togethers, and both my parents were fond of saying how welcoming they were to the young men and women who were away from their families for the first time. As my father’s four-year tour was wrapping up in 1971 and he was preparing to finally settle back in New York with my mother and I, the Colonel mentioned he would be heading over to one of the bases in Asia for a couple of months and would he and my mother need anything for their new home. My father, as the story goes, offhandedly said he’d love a new stereo system for the new apartment in Brooklyn, knowing the best components were often manufactured in Asia. Several weeks later, now living with my mother and I in the apartment on Grant Avenue in Brooklyn, my father received word from Colonel Jackson to expect the stereo in the coming days. What arrived on the front stoop was probably not what he expected; four large shipping crates that had clearly been through customs, inspected and stamped, but in pristine condition and waiting to be opened. When Dad opened those shipping crates in the living room that day, he was greeted with what was, at the time, some of the very best stereo components you could buy: a three-speed Fisher turntable with cover and faux wood base; a Pioneer SX-990 28-watt receiver; and the crown jewels, two Sansui speakers, each standing almost four feet tall, fully encased in wood with crisscross lattice wood panels on the front. It was more than my father expected, considering he mentioned wanting a new stereo only as a passing thought to Colonel Jackson, but that stereo would become a centerpiece in our Brooklyn apartment, and through the years would inspire my brother and I to chase that perfect sound whenever we listened to music. Of course, Dad’s stereo was way off limits to Jamie and me. There were more buttons than we could count, and Dad had them “set” to his exact specifications anyway. And the needle on the turntable probably cost more than his entire record collection, so if we touched that and broke it, we would have been in trouble until we graduated high school. So, instead of pushing all those buttons and turning all those knobs, I simply stared at my father’s stereo when it played. I watched him put records on the turntable spindle, slide the arm into place, and marveled at the vinyl disc hitting the platter. I’d watch the needle slowly descend, anticipating the pop, as it hit the record, then the crackles before the first song played. Then, when the song finally began and the music filled the room, I’d thought I’d never heard anything so perfect. And I would just stare at that record spinning, trying to figure out how a plain black disc could produce something so amazing. When my grandparents gave me my first record player in 1975, the beige plastic turntable from JC Penney, I thought it was the best gift in the world. Of course, it didn’t sound like Dad’s stereo, with its 6-inch mono speaker in the front, but it was all mine. When I turned twelve, my parents presented me with my first real stereo: a Yorx system, complete with turntable and built-in cassette deck, and matching speakers. My father even gave me his stereo headphones, so as not to disturb the entire house when I listened. Other systems followed, and finally in late 1988, reasonably sure there would be a new receiver and CD player under the Christmas tree, I started to think about upgrading my speakers. I would finally have an excuse to go see the local stereo guys where my father had recently gone to upgrade his own system. So, pre-internet, pre-reviews, and pre-Yelp, I walked into that store knowing nothing about what I needed or what I was looking for…but the guys in the shirts and ties were waiting.

Dad’s stereo, Brooklyn circa 1977

Notice the obligatory Spanish conquistador bust on the speaker in the corner

My father had sent me to Square Deal, a store located just north of Sunrise Highway, in Patchogue. It was about a ten-minute drive from Holbrook, so on one of my days off from school and work, I headed over there. As I’ve mentioned, I really did have no idea what I was looking for, and that became more evident as the salesman began asking me questions about what I had (which, compared to what was in the store, was sub-standard), and what I was expecting for Christmas (which I didn’t know). But he was cool and took mercy on me and led me over to the speakers he thought might be close to what I was looking for, based on middle of the road components to match them with. Now this is what I was looking forward to: a full demo of the various amazing floor model speakers. They had listening rooms set up in the store, each with a sound board of sorts, where they could switch the components to certain speakers to demo them, and this gentleman began queuing up a set in one of the rooms. And here’s where it began to get interesting. I expected him to pull out Led Zeppelin, or maybe Van Halen or even some bass-heavy pop to put on the CD player. Instead, he reached for a CD by an artist I was only somewhat familiar with. Singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman’s debut album, Tracy Chapman, had been released earlier that year, April to be precise. I had heard the lead single, “Fast Car”, everywhere that summer. Rock station WBAB played it constantly, and since that was what we listened to at the store where I worked, I heard it several times a day. MTV also had the video on heavy rotation as well. The album ended up being number one the week of my birthday that year, in late August. So, in short, I knew who Tracy Chapman was, and I thought the song “Fast Car” was wonderful. But to test a stereo? The salesman must have seen my face, because he laughed and said, “It’s an odd choice, but trust me, this is the kind of music you want to hear when you’re buying new speakers.” When I probed further, he said something I’ve never forgotten: “An acoustic guitar and a female singing voice are two of the purest sounds you’ll hear. When you listen to speakers for the first time, the last thing you want is distortion, bass, and loud drums.”  I was seriously blown away by what this gentleman, who clearly knew what he was talking about, was telling me. Why had I never heard this before? And did my father know about this trick and not tell me? For the next hour, we listened to Tracy Chapman through Boston Acoustics, Altec Lansing, JBL and others; the very best speakers available. Unfortunately, these were way out of my eighteen-year-old part-time-job budget, and I knew I would not be able to purchase anything that day. But the salesman never rushed me, he answered all my questions, and he listened to “Fast Car” and Tracy Chapman’s other hit, “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” with me at least a dozen times, all without complaint or negative attitude because he would not be making any commission from me that day. I did ask him if they sold CD’s, so he could at least sell me the Tracy Chapman CD, but they “only” sold stereos and other electronics. I thanked him for his time and for his extremely valuable advice. When I saw my father later that day, he asked me how it went, and I told him I needed to save some more to get what I really wanted, but at least I had an idea of what I liked. When he asked me who I spoke with I was embarrassed that I could not remember the gentleman’s name; at this moment writing this I still feel terrible that I cannot remember that guy’s name! Then I asked him about listening to music featuring an acoustic guitar and a female voice to test stereo speakers. My father had never heard that before. I concluded that he must have dealt with someone different when he made his purchase, but he said if that worked for me to go with it. And I still follow that advice when I listen to a new audio device. It’s not always “Fast Car”, but it’s something with that pure acoustic sound, and female singer with it, and it’s worked for me. That Christmas, I did in fact receive a new NAD receiver, and SONY CD player and tape deck. I saved as much as I could but still couldn’t afford what Square Deal offered, but that spring I had enough to buy a pair of excellent Bose speakers from my cousin, using his discount at the superstore where he worked. I wanted very badly to go back to Square Deal and buy one of the amazing pairs I listened to with that extremely helpful salesman, and finally let him earn his commission, but it wasn’t to be. I’ve had so many different stereo systems and speakers through the years, and I’m thrilled that real stereos are making a comeback. Two years ago, my wife bought me a new turntable, so that’s what I listen to most of the time. Someday I’ll upgrade, but not right now; I’m still getting used to playing records again and that rush from hearing the pop of the needle on the vinyl. Besides, I’ll need to find a salesperson who’s willing to spend a few hours with me if want to buy new speakers! My son Dan said when he has his own place, he wants me to help him pick out a turntable and speakers; that’s a day I seriously can’t wait for. 😊

What I’m listening on today…and the vinyl collection is growing once again.

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See, I told you this post would more fun! Next time, we’re going to take a break from the playlist…. Ever try out for a team, and make the “B” or alternates team instead? Or worse, get cut?  We’ll look at the songs that just missed the 50 At 50; not all of them, but a lot of them. Maybe a few of your favorites are on there!

P.S.

 Tracy Chapman’s debut album has sold over 6 million copies and remains her most successful album to date. “Fast Car” charted as high as #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1988; it also won Best Pop Female Vocal at the 1989 Grammys, and Chapman won Best New Artist that year as well. A few days after my speaker education and adventure at Square Deal, I did buy the Tracy Chapman CD; I still have it in one of my big CD binders in the closet, and I still stream the album often. After recording two follow up albums, which were well received critically but lagged in sales, Chapman took a three-year break and released New Beginning in 1995. The album was a comeback of sorts and featured the hit “Give Me One Reason”, which peaked at #3 in 1996, and won Chapman the Best Rock Song Grammy in 1997. She has released four more studio albums since New Beginning and a greatest hits compilation but has not put out any new music since 2008. “Fast Car” continues to be influential and is considered one of the greatest songs ever recorded. It’s been covered live by several artists including Khalid and Sam Smith, and Passenger and Luke Combs recorded cover versions in 2020. The song was also recorded and released as a single by one of my favorite bands of the last five years, Black Pumas. The themes and lyrics of “Fast Car” remain relevant today, and the song has experienced somewhat of a renaissance in the last few years. The protagonist in the song clearly has dreams and wants to make a better life for her and her children, but has attached herself to someone selfish, with no ambition and who does not share those dreams. Her memories of exhilarating drives with him keeps her in this relationship, as she recalls feeling safe, “…and your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder…”, and she feels almost unstoppable in those moments. But realizing things will never change, in the end she tells him, “…so take your fast car and keep on driving…”, knowing she needs to be free of this person if she ever wants to see life improve for her and her family. It’s such a great statement of female empowerment, and about being fearless and independent; it’s no wonder the song continues to resonate. I wouldn’t truly appreciate the music of singer/songwriters until several years later, when I found Lloyd Cole’s album in a stack of CD’s. I was still stuck in my hard rock phase in 1988, and I needed to mature a bit, but “Fast Car” certainly made an impression on me, beyond being a song to demo speakers with.

Square Deal closed their doors in 1994, when big box stores started to overwhelm the smaller businesses. But years later, even some of the bigger retailers like Circuit City and Tops closed as well, after the rise of Amazon. Now all you need is a Bluetooth speaker and a phone to play music, but I assure you, if you’re younger and reading this, there is way more to that music coming out of that 6-inch-tall speaker. Some of those portable speakers sound good, but there is something special about going to a store and having a passionate and knowledgeable person pointing you towards what sounds the best. Stereo systems are making a comeback; all we need now is for some friendly salespeople to demo the sound for us.

I’ll leave you with the video for “Fast Car” but play it through the best speakers you can find; that pristine acoustic guitar and powerful female voice deserve it. 😊

 See you next time…

 JS

9/6/2022