Tracy Chapman’s Grammys Appearance Was the Event of the Night. Here’s How It Happened
Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs hug after performing "Fast car" during the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in a year of Media Dragon 🐉 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.
Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs perform moving duet of 'Fast Car' at the 2024 Grammy Awards
Tracy Chapman - Fast CarFast Cars
You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us outta here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
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
See, my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle, that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
His body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
You got a fast car
We go cruising, entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in the 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 bigger house and live in the suburbs
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
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'd find it
I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere
Take your fast car and keep on driving
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
“At a very young age I realised that comedians are the prophets of our generation. From Lenny Bruce to Dave Chappelle. And we need that. Everyone needs that.”
The Fool is so much a part of Lear’s consciousness. You can lie to the world, but you cannot lie to yourself . . . It’s like looking in the mirror
Peters mentions his garden often. He and his wife Penny have a smallholding in Portugal and he lights up when talking about it — “We have fruit trees there, there’s water from the ground.” And as much as our conversation has revolved around death, it’s also living well that concerns Peters. Not for him Lear’s stated intention to crawl, unburdened, towards death.
“Sometimes, when people retire, they figure, ‘OK, well that’s it, that’s over and done with.’ No!” he cries, beaming. “Learn some shit, man! As long as you’re breathing, learn something, do something! You still have a body — go garden, go carve, go paint, go learn, take a class. Do ANYTHING . . . Age has nothing to do with life, or learning, or continuing to grow. Even the most ancient oak trees are still coming up with new leaves. Why are you going to give up?”
Set Prague, this exhilarating novel within a novel offers all manner of narrative twists, turns and tricks
Three women with a criminal past meet for a weekend Veronika’s hen party – but any hopes of enjoying themselves are soon dashed
Outwardly about a woman called Hero Tojosoa who travels to Prague for a hen party, Helen Oyeyemi’s latest quickly plunges readers into a literary labyrinth that features a vast cast and a loose relationship with time.
We read much yet learn little about Tojosoa: she is an “ex-journalist” living beyond her obvious means in Dublin with her teenage son; her Italian passport lists her birthplace as Vatican City; she is fleeing a mysterious letter whose contents she refuses to read. More to the point, in her Prague suitcase is a copy of Paradoxical Undressing, by the Sydney bartender turned author Merlin Mwenda.
The bold, lucid, and experimental latest from Oyeyemi (Peaces) portrays Prague as a city of dreams and mysteries. The writer Hero Tojosoa, who publishes under the pen name Dorothea Gilman, accepts a last-minute invitation to a bachelorette party in Czechia hosted by two frenemies.
She brings with her a copy of Paradoxical Undressing, a novel by mysterious Australian author Merlin Mwenda, which provides a different narrative each time it’s opened (Hero’s copy shifts overnight from a story of a love triangle in the court of King Rudolf III to one of a dyspeptic judge hoping to frame his own son for crimes against the Communist Party). Also in Prague is the real Dorothea Gilman, who has an axe to grind with Hero for using her name. Dorothea winds up with her own copy of Paradoxical Undressing, one that’s set in 1943 and concerns the perilous adventures of a dancer hoping to subvert the Nazi Protectorate from within.
By the time Dorothea loses her copy of the Mwenda and tracks down a new one in a bookshop, the novel has changed into a madcap farce about rogue hairdresser Ataraxia “the Uglifier” Pham, who terrorized 2016 Prague by giving clients terrible hairdos. Bizarre doublings and subplots abound as Oyeyemi delightfully channels a Borgesian literary lunacy, revealing the connections between Hero and Dorothea and introducing the real Merlin Mwenda (now working as, of all things, an ersatz ice cream vendor). This is a metatextual masterpiece. (Mar.)
