Tracy Chapman - Fast Car; Interpretation
Tracy Chapman - Fast Car
In Tracy Chapman's song "fast car", the speaker deals with her reality and longs for a better life situation. By using the metaphor "fast car", she wants to describe an incisive moment in her life. The woman supports this with words which are associated with this conveyance and talks about the escape from her old, deadlocked life to a new place, where she wants to be able to start all over again.
The speaker opens the song with expressing her desire of a conveyance, that takes her away from her present surroundings. She is longing for somebody to rescue her, a company that takes her into a better life, where she can be able to start all over again. With her statement "you got a fast car", the speaker is rather putting emphasis on the term "fast" than on the car itself. One can feel her urgency of breaking out of her old life, which seems to take away all her air for breathing and almost crushing her to death. Leaving behind her everything, the speaker wants to "finally see what it means to be living".
"So remember when we were driving driving in your car". Talking about the past, the speaker is referring herself to that special night when they were driving away, when they were leaving their old life behind and escaped from it all. With their car, they drove so fast that the speaker felt like she "was drunk". Again, emphasis is put on the speed, which here seems to have the same effect as alcohol does. It made her forget all the bad and sad things that happened to her and gave her back the feeling of being free from all the burden. She did not have no restrains anymore and finally, her self assurance came back: "I had a feeling, I could be someone/ be someone be someone." In those two lines, the term "be someone" is a triplet, which is used to emphasize her belief that she could eventually be that person she wanted to be, that she would be able to reach something. This strengthening can also be seen as a metaphor for her
In Tracy Chapman's song "fast car", the speaker deals with her reality and longs for a better life situation. By using the metaphor "fast car", she wants to describe an incisive moment in her life. The woman supports this with words which are associated with this conveyance and talks about the escape from her old, deadlocked life to a new place, where she wants to be able to start all over again.
The speaker opens the song with expressing her desire of a conveyance, that takes her away from her present surroundings. She is longing for somebody to rescue her, a company that takes her into a better life, where she can be able to start all over again. With her statement "you got a fast car", the speaker is rather putting emphasis on the term "fast" than on the car itself. One can feel her urgency of breaking out of her old life, which seems to take away all her air for breathing and almost crushing her to death. Leaving behind her everything, the speaker wants to "finally see what it means to be living".
"So remember when we were driving driving in your car". Talking about the past, the speaker is referring herself to that special night when they were driving away, when they were leaving their old life behind and escaped from it all. With their car, they drove so fast that the speaker felt like she "was drunk". Again, emphasis is put on the speed, which here seems to have the same effect as alcohol does. It made her forget all the bad and sad things that happened to her and gave her back the feeling of being free from all the burden. She did not have no restrains anymore and finally, her self assurance came back: "I had a feeling, I could be someone/ be someone be someone." In those two lines, the term "be someone" is a triplet, which is used to emphasize her belief that she could eventually be that person she wanted to be, that she would be able to reach something. This strengthening can also be seen as a metaphor for her