Song: Fast Car
Artist: Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs (2023 cover)
Year: 1988
Album: Tracy Chapman
Language Feature: Verb Tenses
Episode Description
Heather is getting together with her friends from high school, and she’s putting together a playlist of songs from the 80s that they can listen to. One song in particular catches her attention, and it turns out it is a great song for talking about past, present and future tense verbs.
In this episode, Ece and Heather are talking about Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car.” It’s a song that tells the story of a young person who is facing choices, remembering the past, facing the present and looking ahead to the future.
Episode Transcript
<Intro>
E: Hi! I’m Ece.
H: And I’m Heather. Welcome to another episode of, “English as a Singing Language.”
E: This is a podcast for people who love music and love English!
H: That’s right! We talk about language features like pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and fluency in a variety of songs from different genres and time periods.
E: We sure do! And in the song for this episode, we are focusing on grammar.
H: Oooooh! There is nothing better than a song with interesting grammar!
E: Actually, this song has past, present and future tense verbs.
H: That sounds just like the song we started with back in Season 1, Episode 1, “I Knew You Were Trouble,” by…
H + E: Taylor Swift!
E: Exactly. This song also tells a story that covers the past, present and future.
H: I can’t wait!
E: Me neither! Let’s get started.
<end intro>
H: (humming, “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman)
E: Hi Heather! … Heather? Hello? Hey!
H: Oh! Hi Ece! I didn’t see you there!
E: What are you doing? You seem like you’re totally lost in thought.
H: Well, maybe I am. You know I’m getting together with my friends from high school in a few weeks.
E: Yes. You get together every year, right?
H: That’s right. We live in different places now, so every year we pick a place and the five of us get together and spend the weekend talking about our high school days, what’s happening in our lives now, and what our future plans are.
E: It’s great to have old friends like that.
H: It sure is.
E: So, what are you doing?
H: Well, I’m creating a playlist of songs from the 80s, you know, the songs we listened to when we were in school together.
E: There are some great songs from the 80s. And the song you were humming just now, that was Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit song, “Fast Car,” wasn’t it? I love that song.
H: Yes. It’s an amazing song. In fact, Tracy Chapman won the Grammy Award for, “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance,” for “Fast Car” in 1989.
E: It’s a really powerful song that tells the story of a young couple who is trying to find their way to having a better future.
H: I think a lot of young people, especially people who are facing challenges, can relate to this song. And, Tracy Chapman is known for her incredible songwriting and her ability to tell a story.
E: This is what Tracy Chapman said about her songwriting in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2015, “There are some concerns that are universal. Everyone wants to be loved, and everyone wants to feel like they belong somewhere in the world. Everyone wants to do something and feel like they have a sense of purpose. These are just the things that I think about and the things that make their way into my songwriting.”
H: You can really feel that in this song and all of her songs.
E: And, like many of her songs, this song tells a story. It starts out in the present, “You got a fast car. I want a ticket to anywhere, maybe we make a deal.”
H: I remember we’ve talked about “have” being more formal, and “get” being more informal and conversational.
E: Right. So, it makes sense that she would use “You got a fast car” for this song since she’s telling a story.
H: And in the next lines she sings, “Maybe together we can get somewhere, any place is better. Starting from zero, got nothing to lose. Maybe we'll make something.”
E: She’s talking about possibility with “we can get somewhere” and using the future, “Maybe we’ll make something.”
H: She sounds very hopeful about the future. And she sings, “Me, myself, I got nothing to prove.”
E: She just wants to go to a new place for a new start without having any set goals. In the next verse, she sings, “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.”
H: Ok, so she uses “I got a plan,” because this is a fact, simple present. And then she uses, “I been working,”
E: For the present perfect progressive tense, shouldn’t it be, “I have been working”?
H: If we are following the grammar rules in our grammar textbook, the answer is “yes,” but in the real world, English is spoken, and sung, in a lot of wonderful varieties, so you will hear variations like, “I been working,” all the time.
E: Cool. And she uses the past tense of “manage” here. What does it mean to “manage” to do something?
H: The verb, “manage” means to succeed in doing something, especially something that is difficult or challenging.
E: So, we can say, “We managed to create a language and music-focused podcast.”
H: We can! There have definitely been some challenges, but we managed to do it!
E: And we’ll keep working on it now and in the future!
H: We sure will.
E: Definitely. Then Tracy Chapman sings about her dreams for the future, “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.”
H: Mmmmm…so since this is a future plan, she uses “won’t have to.”
E: The story continues with more information about her life, “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.”
H: These are all simple present tense verbs since she’s talking about “the way it is.” But, who is her “old man”? And what does it mean to say, “he live with the bottle”?
E: Here it’s used as a slang term to mean “dad” or “father” and “he live with the bottle” means that he drinks too much alcohol.
H: Oh. That sounds like a serious problem. And I noticed that she uses, “he live” instead of, “he lives.” Is that another example of language varieties that we were talking about?
E: It is. The rest of the verse continues, “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.”
H: Ok, interesting. So, in these lyrics, the verbs are in past tense, because these events have already happened. And she was in a difficult situation. She took care of her dad, her old man, because he drank too much.
E: Yeah, and that leads us to the refrain, “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.”
H: Here they are in the present, and they have to make an important decision.
E: The refrain continues, “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.”
H: As soon as we hear the word, “remember,” we know that this is all in the past.
E: In the next verse, she sings, “You got a fast car. We go cruising, entertain ourselves. You still ain't got a job.”
H: It sounds like things aren’t working out the way she hoped they would. And using, “ain’t” instead of “don’t” is another language variation, right? “You ain’t got a job,” versus “You don’t have a job.”
E: Yes. You will hear “ain’t” a lot in conversational English.
H: Right. The verse continues, “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.”
E: In this verse there are present tense verbs, to describe the present situation, she works as a checkout girl, a cashier, at the supermarket.
H: And future tense verbs to describe what she hopes will happen in the future. But, what does it mean to live in a shelter or live in the suburbs?
E: A shelter is a place where people who do not have a place to sleep can stay for free, and the suburbs are the area outside of the downtown area of the city.
H: Ok. So, things aren’t going the way she’d hoped. Do they get better? What happened? This song tells a very compelling story.
E: It doesn’t sound like things got better. She sings, “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.”
H: Oh gosh. It sounds like she is in the same situation that she was in before she left home, but now it is her partner who is drinking too much and not supporting her.
E: That’s what it seems like.
H: Then the verse ends with, “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.”
E: There are a lot of tenses in these lines. She “thought” things would be better, but now she doesn’t have any plans and isn’t going anywhere or as she sings, “I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere.”
H: You’ll also notice that she sings, “You and me’d find it,” rather than, “You and I would find it.” It’s very common for people to use object pronouns like “me” instead of a subject pronoun. So, you’ll hear people say, “Me and her are going to the movies,” and not, “She and I are going to the movies.” That’s really common.
E: Also in that line, “I ain’t going nowhere,” contains two negatives. Instead of, “I’m not going anywhere,” she sings, “I ain’t going nowhere.”
H: That’s another great example of how English is used in the real world.
E: So, the story in the song starts off maybe a little hopeful, but by the end of the story, she’s still in the same place, thinking about escaping the life she has in a fast car.
H: I think this song is really appealing to young people who are not happy with their lives, and they want to escape and start a new better life.
E: This is a great song that uses a variety of verb tenses to tell the story of a young person’s life and the decisions they made.
H: That’s true. And it reminds me of when my friends and I were young and talking about making big decisions in our lives.
E: Well, I think we’re ready to sing.
H: We are! There’s a link to the 1988 Tracy Chapman version of, “Fast Car,” as well as the Luke Combs 2023 cover of the song in the episode notes.
E: Pay attention to the verb tenses as you sing out loud!
H: You’ve got a fast car,
E + H: Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
<outro>
E: So, Heather, are you ready to see your high school friends next weekend?
H: I am. I made a great playlist of all of our favorite singers from the 1980s.
E: I still love listening to 80s songs.
H: Me too.
E: We encourage everyone to check out other episodes of the podcast on our website or wherever you listen to podcasts.
H: And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @singinglanguages.
E: Aaaaaand don’t forget, Heather, we need to remind everyone that we have a YouTube channel now!
H: Yes! We do.
E: There’s a link to the channel in the episode notes!
H: That’s right. Nice job, Ece! It’s great to have another way for our listeners to access the podcast.
E: It sure is. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel.
H: Until next time, have fun and…
H + E: …just keep singing.
Official YouTube Video
Luke Combs Cover
Complete Lyrics
You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
Me, myself, I got nothing to prove
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
Songwriter: Tracy L Chapman Fast Car lyrics © Purple Rabbit Music
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