It was 1988. I had just received my driver’s license and had recently installed a tape deck and working speakers into my old Fiat Spider. I mostly played tapes I had made by sitting on the floor of my room listening to the radio waiting for one of my favorite songs to come on. My go-to station at the time was a hip-hop/r&b station in Dallas. Being well over 100 miles from Dallas, I had to work with the antenna of my stereo to get a signal. Most of my homemade tapes were as much static as music. My parents may not have claimed that the music parts were actually music; although, I found little difference in my dad’s Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and my Roger or Rockwell. When the Fiat was running (which was not very often!) I usually had a tape in the deck, the top down, and the volume up (I had to turn it up if I wanted to hear anything over the wind and the whining engine). We lived “out in the country” a good fifteen minute drive into town. I had time for 3-5 songs to and from school each day. It never occurred to me that I could get through a whole album in a day’s worth of driving, especially if I ran a few errands (read: “cruised” around town). One day a friend loaned me a new tape she had bought. I guess she had grown tired of it and didn’t mind handing it off. Or maybe she felt sorry for me and my barely audible tape of static and the occasional thumping sound. Whatever the reason, she loaned me Tracy Chapman by Tracy Chapman. For the first time I listened to an entire album. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say my life changed that day. The sound of a store-bought tape was glorious. But more importantly, the songs themselves moved me like none before (or after, now that I think about it). At sixteen I was aware of poverty and domestic abuse, but not directly. And as most sixteen-year-old boys, I was becoming more and more aware of the complications of (often one-sided) relationships. Given my location, I was acutely aware of racism and materialism, if not indeed complicit in both. But nothing had made me as aware of any of these things up to this point in my life as Tracy Chapman. Not even another Chapman musician, try as he might, could affect me like Tracy did. With her songs I began to see these issues from the eyes of the victimized, and I began to contemplate the systemic, cultural, social, and economic complications that held these things in place.
- Plight of the poor: “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution“
- Plight of (poor) women (often with abusive partners): “Fast Car,” “Behind the Wall,” “She’s Got Her Ticket“)
- Racism: “Across the Lines“
- Complexity of (often one-sided) relationships: “Baby Can I Hold You,” “For My Lover,” “If Not Now…,” “For You“
- Materialism: “Mountain O’ Things“
- A whole host of things like Starvation, Loneliness, War, Domestic Abuse: “Why?“
This all might seem a little schmaltzy to my forty-year-old self (and maybe to you too!), but to that sixteen-year-old it was significant. I can still sing along with the whole album. I’ve seen her in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve bought every Tracy Chapman album since her debut. And I was listening to that debut album as I wrote this post, humming along as I typed.
I bought my first TC album 8 years later in Seville, Spain. Weird how worlds collide. She’s amazing (as was her concert @ the Hollywood Bowl). I love that you love her.
I just recently started really listening to Tracy. I was very young when her first album came out and would not have understood it then, I was 9. But I recently picked up her first two albums and am amazed at the things she sang about then is just as relevant today. I am from South Africa and my family were oppressed under the apartheid government. So I have seen my fair share of oppression and violence. Today our country is free, but the majority of people are still living in the same conditions as under apartheid. When I listen to her songs like “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” I can see that it is coming (again) here. Yesterday over 30 mine workers that protested at a mine were shot dead, one of the biggest masacres since the end of apartheid almost 20 years ago. Every week the papers are full of people rising up against non-delivery of basic services (running water, schools (many kids are still being schooledunder a tree), electricity, proper toilets etc. etc.). Many schools in the province of Limpopo have not received school books for the year and it is already August! Many who fought against apartheid are fed up as they are still poor, still dont have basic services, or proper education. People are tired of incompetent government officials that have been placed in their positions because of political party affiliation, corruption is rife. It started with the Arab spring, but the winds of revolution are blowing our way. Poor people are rising up, its been 2 decades, and things have not improved for many.
Her music also reminds me that it is the responsibility of each of us to make a difference. In South Africa we are surrounded by voilence, grave inequalities and racial hate all the time. You read it in the papers everyday and see it with your own eyes, so much so that you become numb. You see the beggars on every corner and roll up your window when they come past. We are so used to it, it has become part of every day living. Listening to her gave me a wake up call, as she sings “Hunger only for a taste of justice, Hunger only for a world of truth, ‘Cause all that you have is your soul.” The rest does not matter. We all have an obligation a responsibility to go and make a difference. When you leave this world, it must be a better place for you having been here. The world is certainly a better place for Tracy having been here. Thank you Tracy.
GE, thanks for your comment. In graduate school I lived with a South African of Indian ethnicity. I learned much about his years under apartheid and heard a lot about the current state of the country. I’m glad you’ve found Tracy’s voice for a new generation.
Peace,
Chris