Essays, Not Rants! 271: Fast Car
I really like Tracy Chapman’s "Fast Car," and I realize I’m saying this as someone who’s around thirty years late to the party. Beyond its great musicality, there’s the poetry to it. It speaks to a wanting for a life that’s more than you have, one beyond your circumstances; but also to the dashing of that dream when reality ensues. All in all, it’s a beautiful, melancholic song.
Which I don’t really relate. Or more, can’t. See, I’ve lived a privileged life. I come from a home with functional parents in a healthy relationship; I never had to work to support my family or put my education on hold to care for my parents. The "I" of the song and I have little to nothing in common.
"Fast Car" speaks to something
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"Fast Car" isn't my story and it would be disingenuous of me to suggest otherwise. I love the song and I love singing along but fundamentally I know it's not my song. It's the difference between appreciation and appropriation. If you were to make a video adaption of "Fast Car" and make the leads middle-class and white, you'd be completely missing the point.
This is something I'm thinking through, and a lot of this rant essay is me spitballing. I was introduced to "Fast Car" (and Tracy Chapman proper) when an indie band I love covered the song four-odd years ago. Now, they didn't change the pronouns or the lyrics at all, but it's still a white guy singing. Does that fundamentally effect the song? What about me and a friend singing it a karaoke? Am I thinking about this way too much?
In all honesty: I probably am. When Barcelona sings "Fast Car" they aren't making any claims to the narrative. It’s a thirty year old song and a really good one at that; maybe a cover of it costs some of its subtext, but I don’t think there’s anything, well wrong with it. Maybe it’s like reading a good book, where you get to experience another life as your own for a bit. I don’t have a point to all this, more I’m curious about the way I interact with art and how to do so
Traditionally film clips are developed to be attached to a song with the aim of emphasising a particular message that is found in the lyrics. The words in the song “black fella, white fella” include a variety of language features that are designed to reinforce the importance of values to the listeners. The first feature that can be seen is the use of repetition. An example from the song is evident in the chorus where the words “are you the one” are repeated four times. This technique is used in conjunction with asking rhetorical questions to the listeners. An example of these questions “are you the one that’s going to stand up and be counted?”. These two techniques are used to provide responsibility to
Whenever I play this song, I can’t help but remember my childhood. My parents struggled financially but, that was never an excuse for them. They always took my brothers and I out on small adventures. One of the most memorable memories I get when I play this song is when my parents would take us out to park to have a barbecue, while my brothers and I ran through the park till we became tired and hungry. Whenever I need a break from the world, I listen to this song just to remind myself of those special moments, even though those days won’t ever return, they are memories I will always treasure.
Werner, Craig Hansen. 2006. A change is gonna come: music, race & the soul of America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
The development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the late 1940s and early 1950s by young African Americans coincided with a sensitive time in America. Civil rights movements were under way around the country as African Americans struggles to gain equal treatment and the same access to resources as their white neighbors. As courts began to vote in favor of integration, tensions between whites and blacks escalated. As the catchy rhythm of Rock ‘n’ Roll began to cross racial boundaries many whites began to feel threatened by the music, claiming its role in promoting integration. This became especially problematic as their youth became especially drawn to ...
This song to me is very poetic and it speaks so many truths. Not everyone is easy to love, not everyone is perfect. Love is one of the best, yet worse feelings in the entire world. This song in a sense describes myself. I don’t make things easy, I am very stubborn. I do have a very short fuse, when I do get heated I can become a wrecking ball; destructing everything in my path if I need to.
I can personally relate this song to my past relationship with a guy of 2 years. We had many rough patches while we were together. There were things in the relationship that I can never erase; yet I feel as though I will never fully let him go. He's still trying so hard to get me back and I'm taking advantage of it. I get many mixed emotions about him and the thought of starting up the relationship again. The hardest part is that he's the only person I truly feel I can completely be myself around. Yet, I fear that it will start right back where it ended. All he wants to be is my giving tree and make me happy.
Which was no strange feeling to me since I turned to music to cope with whatever ailed me, because no matter what, a song, some headphones, and volume turned way too loud was always there. Returning to the supple age of ten, was a disconnect, mainly between the receptors in my brain that determine whether or not I get enough of the happy chemicals, but between what I am, and what I thought I was. I thought I was a kid like everyone else, I would be sad for no reason often, but moving many times, and having to be on my own for a large portion of my early to late teens, I thought it was how life was for most people in my situation. My situation was dreary at best, people bullied me extensively in middle school to high school, in the first string of serious relationships I had they all left because of some arbitrary meaning of what being happy should have been; coming to a peak on Valentines day of 2012, the first time I attempted suicide. Suicide is the focus of the song, how abandonment can lead to hopelessness and desperation to the point of the ultimate act of despair, death. “I guess I finally had the courage to go away. The promises we made were made hollowly. Sometimes you'd reassure me we'd be okay. But you'd always leave” (A Lot Like Birds. Kuroi Ledge. Equal Vision Records, 2013.
There are many instances of degrading and misogynistic lyrics in country music, both historically and contemporarily. There are differences in the lyrics of this genre based on the gender of the artist: gender roles, hypersexuality, and in the resistance or conformity to rigid gender-based stereotypes. The main points of my argument will include how country music lyrics have historically and contemporarily conformed to and defied gender roles and misogynistic stereotypes. This paper will then examine how men are portrayed as sexual oppressors and exploiters to women. As well, I will discuss the lyrical differences between men and women in this genre, including the limiting role of women as objects as opposed to subjects. Next, this essay will address in my paper the unhealthy environment country music lyrics creates for women. Country music lyrics currently and historically portray stereotypical gender roles, and women have limited roles within country music songs as subjects and objects.
This song talks a lot about the baggage of the past that people hold onto instead of letting it go. All that baggage is only going to end up hurting you more and more instead of helping you in any way possible. An example is the opening
It is said that art is like a mirror to the soul, a way to see what
In times, we often see things, but we don't really capture what is beyond it. In some cases, there are people who are artistic and are prone to see what other's cannot visualize. Every individual has a talent which can be expressed and processed differently. Something you see can mean entirely divergent things to someone else;for example, some may see thing's that may seem simple, but in the eyes of an artist, it can be perceived with a whole new definition, dimension, and a potentially new discovery. As a photographer, my view of the world, can be skewed towards looking at everyday objects as potential art, but it wasn't always like that.
It does not matter what race you are, what gender you are, or even what style of culture you and your family believe in. The only thing that matters is that we are all human at the end of the day. This song teaches people that the color of your skin does not define who you are, but your character and your demeanor does. “Michael Jackson’s musical message of social and political equality amongst races the world over influenced the political and social thinking of many around the world with a liberal ideology of progress, change, human emancipation and equality.” (Goswami
The arts have influenced my life in amazing ways. Throughout my life, art has been the place I run to and my escape from the world. As I’ve grown older, art has become so much more than that. Every piece of art I create is a journey into my soul. It’s a priceless way to deal with my emotions and my struggles. I create art not only because I enjoy it and because I want to, but because I have to. Somewhere deep inside there is a driving force, urging me to put my heart down on paper. I become emotionally attached to each of my pieces because they are like dashes on the wall marking my growth. Each one is the solution to a problem I have dealt with and overcome.
“Lonely” is one of those songs you need when you just went though a break up. It 's the sad or negative part of love. He has so many emotions in this song like, regret, sadness, and compassion. I picked this song because I think it shows a great part of love, the part when you realize what you had but not that thing is gone. A lot of people take love for granted and don 't realize what other do for them until those people leave. It shows how selfish love can be at time’s. This is one of the worst things about love is having your heart broken into a million pieces. One of the most painful things I have ever experienced. The song is very popular though because