Ode to Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman is a fantastic song-writer. She has been terribly undervalued all her career. Most people only remember her for her classic Fast Car. She has many other great songs as well. I don't claim to have heard every album, but from what I have heard so far, her songs speak volumes.

She has a way of infusing deep meanings into her lyrics, and she sings on love, loss, poverty, discrimination, and all forms of sadness. Take for example, Fast Car, which talks about being stuck in a destructive cycle all one's life, no matter how much one wishes to run away (in a fast car):

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

....

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

...

You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs
You got a fast car
And 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

Another song I like is Devotion, taken from her 1997 album "Telling Stories".

What if you find a fault
Between my purpose and my deeds
And deem me beyond salvation
Judge me to be unworthy

Of your devotion
Of your devotion

When listening to this I am forced to ask myself, "Will I be able to find someone who does not expect me to be perfect in order to deserve devotion?"

And now, Tracy Chapman has released her 7th studio album, "Where You Live". I heard her first single, Change on radio a month back and I was immediately hooked. Once again, she has managed to make her listeners reflect and ask themselves, "Will I be able to change my decision if I know I'm going to make a mistake in life? How attached am I to things in my life that I won't let it go, although it will burn us?"

If you knew that you would die today,
If you saw the face of God and Love,
Would you change? Would you change?

If you knew that love can break your heart,
When you're down so low you cannot fall,
Would you change? Would you change?

How bad, how good does it need to get?
How many losses, how much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?
Makes you turn around, makes you try to explain,
Makes you forgive and forget, makes you change?

It really makes one think.