Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs at the Grammys

It’s What the World Needs More of

Okay so I’m a sap. But not really. I’m more the bottled-up type and it takes a lot to get me to cry. But watching the video of Tracy Chapman singing Fast Car with country singer Luke Combs on the Grammys just did it. So many feelings.

It is such a good song. The acoustic guitar playing that only skilled guitarists can attempt, the rhythm that automatically makes you bob your head and sway your body, the lyrics that tell a story, the hooks that make you want to sing along. Perfection. Hearing her beautiful unique vibrato-laden voice was immediately soothing. Seeing her with silver hair tied back in dreds, her twinkling eyes and her luminous smile, dressed simply in jeans and a long-sleeve button down shirt, was more impressive to me than the formally dressed people in attendance.

The brain synapses were going off connecting to my past when she was at the top of her stardom, and I was going through the early years of my adulthood, buying every one of her CDs.

Though it was a duet with Luke, and he recently brought her hit Fast Car back as a country hit, she outshined him by megawatts. He was an amateur compared to her (I admit a bias). But at the end, when he pointed to her, and then bowed to her — oh man. I loved that. It reminds me of…